Congratulations to our 2022 Schulich Award winners!

The Schulich Awards for Nursing and Clinical Excellence recognize individuals who demonstrate the values of Sunnybrook in their daily work. These awards honour employees who work in the areas of diagnostic, therapeutic and direct clinical patient care. Congratulations to this year's winners!

Below, meet the winners and read some words of support from their nominators (edited for length and clarity):

Carrie-Anne Alvarez, Emergency Department Nurse
In her role as a Clinical Care Leader in the Emergency Department (ED), Carrie-Anne Alvares interacts with countless interprofessional team members while coordinating daily operations and patient care. Even when working in extremely challenging circumstances, Carrie-Anne consistently acts with a calm and professional demeanor with the patient experience and safety at the forefront of her mind. Carrie-Anne fosters and models positive relationships with the entire interprofessional team. She is amongst the first to step up to help the team when they are struggling. As a front-line emergency nurse, Carrie-Anne is a highly skilled and experienced care provider. Patients in the ED are often scared, vulnerable, and are experiencing a seminal event in their lives. She treats all her patients with proficiency, dignity, and kindness. She has become accustomed to encountering unexpected situations that go far and above her role description, and rises to every challenge. Carrie Anne is always working with the clinical team to facilitate the timeliest access to care possible for all patients in the ED. She exemplifies the care provider we would all want for our families and friends.

Alla Bozhko, Team Coordinator (temporary role), A2 – Trauma, Burns and Complex Care, St. Johns Rehab
In the last year, Alla Bozhko (a Sunnybrook RN for 20 years) has demonstrated her extraordinary leadership and excellence in interprofessional practice by stepping up to support unit staff and operations by volunteering to fill the critical role of the Team Coordinator during an unexpected absence and now recently does so in a temporary capacity. During this time, she has supported and led numerous quality improvement initiatives on the unit. She has been a role model to boost a culture of safety by encouraging, educating and leading by example on the importance of submitting Safety Reports. Alla collaborates with staff to develop Patient Safety Plans and works closely with partners in Acute Care and Outpatient Rehab for the Trauma and Burn programs to go above and beyond to initiate early communication as part of the Transfer of Accountability process, for patients with identified high-risk behaviours, to ensure effective and safe transitions in care. In addition to these extraordinary efforts, Alla is one of the leaders of the newly developed unit-based FUN Committee! In this role, she has proven her dedication to staff wellness by making time to encourage and coordinate both on and off-unit activities in an effort to support team building, morale and wellness.

Andrea Nunn, Physiotherapist, Rehabilitation Services, Holland Bone & Joint Program
Andrea is an extremely skilled clinician, great team member, incredibly reliable employee, but what sets her apart is her ability to truly deliver patient-centred care. In many cases, we work with patients that are recovering from a surgery and while most patients recover in a similar way they all bring diverse life experiences, mental, physical and social challenges. Andrea is truly able to see the individual that she is treating and adapt her approach to meet the patient where they are. In an example of the nominee’s person-centred approach, the nominee was working with a woman with a total knee replacement, multiple health issues, and a recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. This patient wrote, expressing her heartfelt appreciation: “The physical exercises Andrea gave me have certainly helped, but one of the most important gifts she gave was the understanding about my dealing with my diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. It’s quite new for me, and I’m still finding it difficult to talk to people about it, so her acceptance was a really great help.”

Kaitlan Pucknell, SCOPE Nurse Navigator, Strategy and Integration
As the SCOPE Nurse Navigator, Kaitlan provides navigation supports for primary care providers in North Toronto. As we grow our Ontario Health Team, working together and providing excellent service to our care partners is integral to us working together as one team across the health care system. Through every encounter and request Kaitlan receives from primary care, she demonstrates the core values that is the foundational to the work at Sunnybrook, and shows her commitment, and Sunnybrook’s commitment, in caring for our patients and families when it matters most, by helping to solve the problems posed by primary care regarding their patients. Primary care providers contact Kaitlan directly with their issues, and they have indicated how helpful Kaitlan has been in helping to navigate urgent referrals required, or providing support with identifying the
type of specialist to refer to, ultimately helping patients that are in need. The impact to the physician practices are felt and the support by Kaitlan is much appreciated. Kaitlan understands that her actions impact the lives of others. Even when the questions and requests raised by primary care are complex, Kaitlan does not stop exploring until she has options and potential solutions to share back with primary care, understanding the impact she has on the patients who need help.

Ashley Skinner, Social Worker, Complex Malignant Hematology (CMH)
Ashley has been continuously demonstrated the Sunnybrook Values since beginning her role as Social Worker on CMH in 2018. She truly goes above and beyond her role every single day. Her passion for working with oncology patients is felt by everyone around her. Her detail-oriented nature, compassion and vast knowledge are a large part of the reason that the CMH team functions so well. Ashley demonstrates excellence in every facet of her role as a social worker, colleague and mentor. She continuously goes above and beyond to ensure that patients and families have the best access to care both in hospital and in the community. She spends most of her days working with community organizations to ensure safe, comprehensive and patient/family focused services to all patients being discharged. When not arranging and confirming homecare services for patients, Ashley can be found sitting in with patients and their family members, discussing all aspects of their lives, advising on pertinent applications and processes to ensure their personal matters are attended to and ensuring that all members of the family are well informed and attended to. Ashley’s calm and respectful nature, even in the most difficult of times, is something we all strive for.

Laura Strong, C4 Team Leader
Laura started her role as Team Leader in the midst of the COVID pandemic. She very quickly adapted to not just the regular demands of running a 36-bed GIM ward (which are many) but the stress that ensued when this was a dedicated COVID unit. Laura's leadership really shone at this time - she went far above and beyond. Laura was simply unflappable. No ask was ever too great. She approached every day with quite determination, a super organized approach, support and encouragement and mentorship for her team, patience and most of all good humour. She basically made it fun to attend on the COVID unit (even if that sounds a bit weird). She was the centre and the glue of an incrediblycollaborative and cohesive inter-professional team. She was the perfect person to be in that Team Leader role at that time (and still is perfect to be in this role as she is now). Laura is an incredibly humble person and I'm sure if you asked her, she would say about all this that she was "just doing her job". But she did (and still does) so much more than that. She did the job of about 5 people, and she kept all the other people around her focused and calm (she still does!).

Maria Tsvetkov, Occupational Therapist, C2 Medical Radiation Oncology
Every single day, especially when circumstances are particularly challenging, Maria brings calmness, compassion and cohesion into all she does. When it comes to patient care, she listens deeply to what is most important to a patient and their family, and works hard with the team to help patients achieve their goals. Maria is known to keep going, to find a creative solution, even when it seems all available options are exhausted. There was the time when Maria used her connections with OTs in another Program to find a donated wheelchair so that a patient could be discharged from hospital safely. And there is the time that Maria “raced against the clock” with the team to get a hospital bed set up in a patient’s home so that the family would not miss the “window of opportunity” to be together with him in his last hours of life. Maria is an outstanding clinician and colleague. She develops strong connections and relationships that have brought comfort, clarity, and joy to so many people at Sunnybrook.

Suzette Turner, Nurse Practitioner Electrophysiology, Cardiology
Suzette Turner is an extraordinary human being who goes beyond the call of duty on a daily basis. She advocates for Sunnybrook patients with implantable cardiac devices, ensures high quality care is provided to these patients, and assists physicians execute a care plan that she frequently devises. She answers patient questions in person, returns all patient calls and does this without a single complaint. She is vital in educating fellow nurses, and physicians in training. She is the true glue of the Sunnybrook device program. Ms. Turner is critically important to education of nurses and physicians at Sunnybrook and beyond. She frequently has student NP’s placed with her. Device clinic RN’s from other Toronto area device clinics also come to Sunnybrook to shadow her. Suzette’s caring nature was exemplified by her decision to come in on a long weekend to see a patient face to face who was scared and concerned about infection after device implantation. Few would make this decision to go the extra mile, but it was second nature for Suzette who embodies and effortlessly practices the values of Sunnybrook.

Sharon Yamashita, Clinical Coordinator, Critical Care/Pharmacy
Sharon has exemplified excellence in practice throughout her career. She has many decades of experience working in the critical care, and has continuously developed her skills throughout her entire career, while always seeking to share her knowledge in innovative and practical ways. At the beginning of the pandemic, Sharon quickly identified that many pharmacists might find themselves in a situation of working in a critical care unit on very short notice and developed and delivered a teaching module “ICU 101 for Pharmacists” Part 1 and 2, which was later distributed through the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists. This was an important resource for pharmacists throughout Canada seeking to prepare themselves for a potential change in practice due to COVID-19 pandemic pressures. One nominator said, while Sharon exemplifies all the qualities outlined in the awards criteria, her leadership and ability as a role model must be highlighted. Quite simply, Sharon is the ultimate clinical pharmacist, and has an unbelievable clinical knowledge and assessment skills that greatly benefit the care of her patients in the Critical Care Unit.