Dr. Lynda Balneaves

Bringing the bench to the bedside: lessons learned from research with cancer patients

Cancer touches almost every family eventually, and when it does, the patient and their family members are faced with making many important decisions. Yet most of us are not cancer experts before diagnosis, and making those decisions can be a stressful and confusing process.

Dr. Lynda Balneaves is a BC nurse researcher and nursing faculty member at UBC whose research for the past 16 years has focused primarily on the health care decisions made by people living with, or at risk of, cancer.

She will be bringing her insights on how to make informed decisions about cancer treatment and complementary medicine to the University of the Fraser Valley in the annual UFV nursing lecture. She will be presenting on “bringing the bench to the bedside: lessons learned from the CAMEO research program” over the past five years.
Dr. Balneaves was the inaugural nursing research lecture presenter in 2009. UFV welcomes Dr. Balneaves back to the Abbotsford campus on Tuesday, March 26. Her lecture will be at 5 pm in the lecture theatre, Room B101 in Building B.

She has a special interest in how individuals and families touched by cancer can be best supported in making safe and informed treatment decisions about complementary and alternative medicines (CAM).

Dr. Balneaves has been instrumental in the development of the Complementary Medicine and Education Outcome (CAMEO) program. The CAMEO program is a unique, nurse led, research-intensive collaboration between the University of British Columbia and the BC Cancer Agency.

In addition to her research work, Dr. Balneaves is an associate professor in the School of Nursing at UBC.

She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate nursing programs, including courses in critical inquiry and evidence-informed practice. She is also active on several master’s and PhD thesis committees in the fields of cancer nursing, treatment decision making, complementary and alternative medicine, and quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

The annual nursing lecture at UFV is presented by the Faculty of Health Sciences with support from the UFV Research Office as a way of providing continuing education opportunities to those working in the health-care system, current UFV students and faculty, and UFV alumni.

The Faculty of Health Sciences offers a wide range of programs in health care and wellness, providing students with innovative, academic, and career- oriented experiences and opportunities for learning. Programming in health sciences includes bachelor-level nursing, practical nursing, health care assistant, dental assistant to kinesiology and physical education.

For more information on UFV nursing programs, visit ufv.ca/health.

To learn more about CAMEO’s research programs and recruitment for study participants, visit: www.bccancer.bc.ca/CAMEO