John Edwards, master of nursing student, followed his love of people, stories and cycling for his graduate research project

Recently I was able to catch up with master of nursing student John Edwards to learn more about his unique master’s research project (MRP) and graduate student experience at the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing (DCSN) at the Faculty of Community Services (FCS).  Once completed this paper, and others can be viewed online through the library. Edwards aims to publish by the fall of 2022. In his own words:

What is your research project about?  What attracted you to this subject matter?

For four years now, I’ve taken part in the Friends for Life Bike Rally. A 600km ride from Toronto to Montreal that raises funds for people living with HIV in Toronto. The participants are a mix of gay men of a wide age range who are HIV positive and negative. As a rider, I see an incredibly supportive community building bridges within an increasingly fragmented community. As a nurse, I see healthier gay men and people living with HIV overcoming discrimination and stigma. My thesis aims to uncover the experience of this community event for the participants and examine the influence community has on health and well-being for gay men.

Why did you choose to do this work at the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing?

I'm doing my work here because of the faculty. I built great relationships with my thesis supervisors, who helped me understand problems at a new and higher level. I’m grateful for their enthusiastic support.  Professor Oona St. Amant sparked my interest in the politics of healthcare and the inequalities many communities face, and Professor Corinne Hart reminded me that patients and nurses alike are made up of all our experiences from our communities. Our communities influence us no matter where we are.

How has COVID-19 affected your research project?

Everything had to be done online, including supervisor meetings and all of my preliminary research. It's a lot of time alone in front of a computer, but this shift also highlights the importance of a community network and how isolated members of the LGBTQ+ community can be.

What do you see for your future and the impact of your research?

The vast majority of the available research shows that members of the LGBTQ+ community face a lot of discrimination, and there is still so much misinformation and stigma surrounding HIV. My research will provide insight into the influence of community on the well-being of gay men and hopefully help AIDS service organizations better serve their clients. I hope that my work can further humanize the experience of gay men and people living with HIV. This winter I will join forces with local community health organizations in Peel Region to develop and teach training programs on LGBTQ+ health issues to interprofessional health care providers. The educational resources I develop may also be used to teach nursing students at Ryerson. My goal is to be a leader in education on LGBTQ+ and HIV issues within the Canadian healthcare system.

What have been some highlights of your MRP experience?

I love people and their stories. I’m looking forward to the interview process. I think it’s so exciting and intimate to hear someone’s perspective on a subject. Nurse researchers have an opportunity to see inside the experience of the people they care for. I think this kind of sharing humanizes us both.

What have been some unexpected obstacles on your journey? How have you overcome them?

The academic process takes a lot longer than I thought it would. Qualitative work has no cut-and-dry answers. Everything I’ve ever worked on before this was handed in, marked, and that was the end of it. Graduate-level work isn’t like that. You hand something in, it gets critiqued and given back for revision or a complete rewrite, even with very supportive supervisors, that process can wear one down. To cope, I remind myself why this work is important to me and that this isn’t my life’s work, it’s just the beginning. Sometimes you have to step away and just let it marinate for a day or two. Ice cream helps.

What would you say to someone considering graduate work at DCSN or one of the other nine schools at the FCS?

My advice is to maintain curiosity. It is important to remain flexible and evolve with the work, critiques, and other twists and turns on the journey.  It is important to make sure students have cultivated mentors and supportive friendships to help them learn what to do when the journey becomes convoluted. 

Graduate work can be all-consuming. What are some things you do to maintain a work-life balance?

The subject of my MRP is a bike rally! That takes some significant training to prepare for, so I’m out on my bike, cycling around the city as often as I can.

Graduate Research Series

This past summer graduate students at the Faculty of Community Services (FCS) were invited to tell us about their research projects and graduate studies experience. This is part of a series of introductory profiles about graduate students, their research and their advice for prospective graduate students. It is our hope you are as inspired by their research efforts and success as we are.  If you would like to submit a story idea for consideration please contact Bonte Minnema at bminnema@torontomu.ca.