As an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at McMaster University, Patricia has been an advocate for a palliative approach to care in regional, national and international venues. She is passionate about illuminating and advancing the critical role of nurses’ expertise in fostering therapeutic relationships with seriously ill patients and their families- no matter the circumstance or how fleeting the interaction. She is fascinated by language and its power to make a difference when people are experiencing stress, loss and uncertainty. The graduate course she developed – Communication in Serious Illness – has been ground-breaking for nurses seeking education for advanced practice. Dr. Strachan is Co-Chair of the Healthcare Communication in Nursing Special Interest Group for the European Association for Communication in Healthcare and a master trainer for Serious Illness Conversations. She is deeply committed to optimizing education for meaningful engagement in relational aspects of palliative care that are grounded in a critical paradigm.
A passionate and innovative nurse educator, Patricia has drawn from the arts, philosophy and science to engage learners in imagining the possibilities for nurses and nursing. She is an expert in problem-based learning and nursing education. Most recently her scholarship has taken a poetic turn, expressed in the writing of poetry to explore, play with and critique the intersection of language, care and existential issues related to serious illness.
Radical Nurse Talk 