When I met her at the door to her office, Greta Cummings appeared friendly, welcoming and composed — a combination that suggests her years of cancer nursing experience and healthcare leadership.
Greta is a familiar face around the U of A, and equally familiar around the university hospital. Her career has taken her back and forth across 87th Avenue many times. When she wasn’t directing patient care for surgery and trauma at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, or leading the medical and nursing programs at the Cross Cancer Institute, she was studying educational administration and healthcare leadership at the U of A, where she later became a faculty member.
On July 1st, she stepped up to lead one of the top nursing faculties in the world as the newest Dean of Nursing. I sat down with Greta to talk about the new role, where she has come from, and what the future of the faculty might look like:
You started July 1, 2017. How are you settling in so far?
So far it’s been great. Everyone has been very welcoming. I worked in the faculty for 13 years before this, so it isn’t strange. And I’ve been an administrator before, so the relentless meetings aren’t strange either.
Looking back on your career, there’s a definite trend towards management and administrative roles. What pulled you towards administration?
I was a manager in the healthcare system fairly early in my career. I realized very quickly that there’s an opportunity as a manager to have an impact on more than the 3–8 patients that you might be caring for — that in fact, you can have an impact on all of the patients on your unit. That role really intrigued me.
You eventually came back to the U of A to get your PhD in Nursing, and later to join the faculty. What motivated that transition?
I didn’t actually have any intention of becoming a professor. But working in leadership and administration, I began to realize that the decisions that leaders make in the healthcare system have some really good impacts, but they also have some negative impacts.
I decided I needed to study what the impact of that leadership was for nursing and for patients. It wasn’t until I saw the results of my thesis — the dramatic differences in outcomes for staff and for patients — that I thought, “This is the beginning of a big program of research, and I’m going to have to do it.”
I made the decision a year after completing my PhD to come back to the university, and it was the best decision.
How do these different experiences begin to shape your new role as dean?
I think they shape the way I approach people. Having studied leadership, I’m a little more reflective around my own style. My leadership style is quite relational: I completely believe that the people in your organization are your most valuable resource — far more than money, far more than anything else. So that’s the approach I take in my work.
You’ve also done some work with national and international nursing organizations. Can you tell me about those experiences?
When I decided to come back to the university, I didn’t want to leave behind the field of cancer and oncology nursing. So that’s when I joined the board of the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology, and then later the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care.
The opportunities were phenomenal. I was working with skilled nurses — first in Canada, and then internationally — to actually build infrastructure and support for cancer nurses around the world.
Did those experiences change how you think about nursing as a profession?
They did — I’m amazed by the incredible capacity that nurses have, no matter where they are.
In high-income countries, we can build programs of research and care that have tremendous impact because of the resources that we have, and the knowledge and partnerships that we have. But in low-income countries, the nurses have much less — in many countries they have no resources — but they have an amazing impact on the communities that they serve.
By bringing those communities together, you can really shape both.
Will global experiences be a priority for the Faculty of Nursing, then?
Yes. I think it’s something that we’ve already done well, but growing opportunities for students to have experiences in other cultures and countries, and promoting international research collaborations — these help everyone to grow.
U of A’s nursing faculty consistently ranks among the top programs in world. What makes for a great nursing program?
There are a handful of things:
First of all is excellence in research — which means research impact that is actually taken up and implemented into practice. This faculty has a lot of depth in its research programs and collaborations, so it’s known for that.
Another is excellence in teaching and learning. We’re continuing to build on that going forward.
And in the official rankings, employer ratings are really important in terms of what employers think of the nurses that we educate and prepare. It’s why we need strong relationships with employers and the communities that our students learn and eventually work in.
What’s on your radar for your first year as dean?
We’re working on our own strategic plan, and it’s modeled on For the Public Good. So certainly one thing is the refinement of our strategic plan, and moving into operationalizing that plan.
We’re also in the process of developing a new curriculum for our undergraduate program — that will be implemented in September of 2018. It’s a brand new curriculum, and we’ll be focusing on leadership skills, fundamentals of care, and applying evidence into practice so that these nurses will really be ready for the future.
The other thing we have in the next year is celebrating our 100th year of nursing education at the U of A.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.