Sleep health is surging in importance: over the last several years, the news has been full of the positive effects of good sleep and tips on making sure your sleep is the best it can be. But what if you work the night shift, with patients whose lives are dependent on you catching every detail? That’s the reality of our health care professionals—and an issue that Niki Soroush is trying to make easier to the benefit of our nurses, their patients, and our health care system as a whole.
Niki knew she wanted to be a nurse from a young age. She saw relatives and friends with health issues move in and out of hospitals, and saw the incredible difference that nurses, their care, and their compassion made to their hospital experiences and their health outcomes. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from UBC Okanagan. “It was a program I could enter directly from high school,” she says. “And I knew I didn’t want to do anything else.”
During her preceptorship—which is the later part of nursing education, when student nurses undertake hands-on learning within hospitals—she experienced the demands of a night shift and how it affected her and her fellow nurses. “Patients need round the clock care, there’s no way around this,” she says. “But the impact on the health of nurses is profound.” She was alarmed to learn that many nurses avoid or leave jobs in hospital care because of this, leaving patients – and our health care system—dangerously low on resources.
During her last years as an undergraduate student, Niki worked at The Slumber Lab under Dr. Elizabeth Keys as a Research Assistant, and so she knew about the possibilities inherent in sleep research. After some time on the front lines of nursing practice, she decided to return to UBC Okanagan to pursue a Master’s in Nursing with Dr. Keys, researching the impacts of sleep on night shift workers. Her future research will look for new and effective ways that curriculum and hospital policy could support student nurses and, in future, other night shift workers, so that staffing levels could be maintained for patient care without sacrificing the health and wellbeing of our essential workers.
“When nurses are supported, patients get better care,” she says simply. “The risk of medical error goes down and patient outcomes improve. Advancements in support for nurses’ sleep could have a system-wide positive influence—not to mention improving recruitment and retention of essential nursing staff.”
The possibilities for improvements are wide-ranging: From better education that helps nursing students care for themselves, to stronger support as they transition into hospital work, to policy changes around shift work, hours, breaks, or overtime.
Niki’s Master’s degree work was made possible by support from the Joseph and Molly Degrazio Graduate Masters Entrance Award, established in honour of Molly’s nursing career in Kelowna. Molly left funds in her will for an endowment for Nursing graduate students in the Faculty of Health and Social Development at the UBC Okanagan campus. In just three short years since the award’s establishment, fourteen nursing students have received considerable support for their research work. Niki has been able to leave her shift work and focus entirely on her research, attending conferences to share her findings and learn from other researchers.
“There’s so much growth and potential for nursing research,” Niki says. These awards are important because there are many gaps in practice that would benefit enormously from greater research, improving the nursing experience and patient care and even addressing the nursing shortage in Canada.
She’s enormously grateful for the Degrazio Entrance Award. “It’s such a gift to students. Nurses need to influence their own policies,” she explains.
“Nursing research done by nurses who have the patient care knowledge will change our health care system for the better. And if I didn’t have this support, I wouldn’t be able to immerse myself as I am, to do the work that we need.”
In the future, Niki sees herself teaching nursing—especially classes on sleep health—and continuing her research to make nursing practice better for all concerned. “And I want to be a legacy donor, to pay it forward,” she says, smiling.
