After almost a year after being notified she would be receiving the Order of Canada, Sidney resident Anita Molzahn finally received the honour this week.
Dr. Anita Molzahn was first informed on June 30, 2017 that she would receive the Order of Canada for her work in the nursing profession. Molzahn began her career in Victoria where she graduated in 1974 to become an registered nurse. By 1989 she had earned a doctorate, not in nursing, but in sociology since, at the time, there were no PhD programs for nursing.
It was her clinical work in dialysis and transplantation at the University of Alberta that led her to develop an interest in studying the quality of life of those patients. She worked to develop measurement tools to compare quality of life across different cultures utilizing multicultural and multi-lingual surveys. In this way it was possible to determine how the methods and practices in Canada stacked up against 21 other countries around the world.
In that work Molzahn worked as part of a team working with the World Health Organization.
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“Anita Molzahn has been a guiding light in nursing research and education,” states a write-up on the Order of Canada website. “As a professor and dean responsible for the nursing faculty at the University of Victoria and more recently at the University of Alberta, she has enriched the training of a generation of nursing professionals by establishing innovative curriculum and degree programs, and fostering interdisciplinary research. Concurrently, she has carried out internationally recognized research in nephrology, which has deepened our understanding of quality-of-life factors related to kidney disease and improved our approach to organ donation.”
The Order of Canada investiture ceremony took place May 10 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Molzahn received her honour as a Member of the Order of Canada.
Another local person is also at Rideau Hall today. Victoria’s Joseph Arvay is now an Officer of the Order of Canada. A litigation lawyer, according to the website, Arvay “has helped shape our understanding of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” He is noted for his involvement in landmark cases in the areas of physician-assisted death, safe injection sites, LGBTQ rights and Indigenous land claims.
— with files from Tim Collins
