Michelle Lobchuk, RN, PhD

Dr. Lobchuk has held a National Cancer Institute of Canada, Canadian Cancer Society Research Scientist Award and recently, a Research Manitoba Chair in Caregiver Communication.

She is passionate about promoting sensitive, communication competence in caregivers (both professional and family).

With funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and other partners, she has built a 943 square foot home-like design communication laboratory (also known as CAre Lab) at Grace Hospital where she conducts interdisciplinary communication studies with Mac computers, cameras, and audio-recording devices along with sophisticated video analysis software.

She is currently transforming her empathy-related video-feedback intervention, called In Your Shoes (IYS), into a web browser training portal and a mobile application for clinicians to conveniently learn how to engage in empathic dialogue with clients.

Dr. Lobchuk is collaborating with experts in empathy and technology development from the disciplines of nursing, social psychology, computer science, and engineering. She continues to test the training portal with multidisciplinary students at the University of Manitoba as well as nursing students at Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences. Over the course of developing this training portal, she has supervised computer science students with the Globalink Mitacs international research intern program and with the Price Faculty of Engineering Co-operative Education and Industrial Internship Program.

Currently, she is supervising a Lab-2-Market Mitac Prairies graduate student and budding entrepreneur who is honing her marketing skills to scale-up the uptake of the IYS training portal app across work sectors where empathy is important (e.g., human resources, counseling, health care, business, etc.).

Dr. Lobchuk teaches currently at the undergraduate level on evidence informed practice and supervises graduate and doctoral students in their thesis/dissertation projects.

Dr. Lobchuk has jointly taught the innovative multidisciplinary, intergenerational introduction to family caregiving across the lifespan course to promote family caregiving as a scientifically based discipline to undergraduate students across disciplines.

She serves as an invited collaborator and contributor on (a) Dr. Jasneet Parmar’s (University of Alberta, Department of Family Medicine) on-line Advanced Caregiver-Centered Care Education for health professionals who work with family caregivers and (b) Dr. Jacqui Allen’s Living Lab Research Program “Improving support for culturally and linguistically diverse carers during transition of older adults from hospital to community” at Monash University School of Nursing and Midwifery Clayton Campus, Australia.

Education

Interdisciplinary PhD, University of Manitoba (2001)

Master of Nursing, University of Manitoba (1995)

Bachelor of Nursing, University of Manitoba (1992)

Awards

Awards include:

Association of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, Professional Nursing Award, Award of Excellence - Nursing Research (2022)

Manitoba Health Research Council Research Chair in Caregiver Communication (2011-2016)

College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba 2010 Excellence in Professional Nursing Award (2010)

CANO/Pfizer Excellence in Nursing Research Award, Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology (2009)

Winnipeg RH Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions to Scholarship and Research in Health Sciences Category (2009)

Award for Excellence in Graduate Nursing Education, Graduate Nurses Association, Faculty of Nursing (2007)

Outstanding New Investigator Award, Canadian Association for Nursing Research (2006)

National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) CCS (2004-2010)

Excellence in Graduate Nursing Education, Graduate Nurses Association, Faculty of Nursing, University of Manitoba (2003)