Margot Latimer, RN, PhD

Dr. Margot Latimer completed her BSc in Nursing and a Masters of Nursing at Dalhousie University. She worked as a nurse at the IWK Health Centre for many years before completing her PhD in Nursing from McGill University (2006) and a post doctorate in neuroscience from Laval University (2010). Margot is a Professor in Dalhousie University’s School of Nursing and holds research funding for several projects from the Canadian Institute of Health Research.  She received the Early Career Research Excellence Award from Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Health Professions in 2014.

Dr. Latimer’s research interests are associated with children’s pain management and relief and clinician empathy for pain.  More specifically, her research is focused on exploring Aboriginal children’s expression of pain and how the context of culture and tradition can impact pain expression and management. She has worked to establish strong partnerships with Aboriginal communities to learn from a ‘Two-Eyed’, Indigenous and Western perspective how to best assess and manage Aboriginal children’s pain experience.  Dr. Latimer co-leads the Aboriginal Children’s Hurt & Healing (ACHH) Initiative with Eskasoni First Nation Health Director, Sharon Rudderham.

Ultimately, she seeks to improve wellbeing and quality of life for Aboriginal children through many avenues including the development of learning opportunities for students in the Faculties of Health Professions, Sciences and Medicine and the creation of a pain communication app.  The IWK Izaak magazine highlighted some of some Dr. Latimer’s work in this area – Lost in Translation. Dr. Latimer is also interested in the role that empathy plays in health clinician’s management and treatment of pain and uses novel approaches like fMRI to examine this area.

Use the links on the right of the screen to find out more
about Dr. Latimer’s work.