Graham McCaffrey

Graham McCaffrey, RN, BA, PhD

Positions

Associate Professor

Faculty of Nursing, Faculty

Contact information

Phone number

Office: 403.220.3516

Location

Office: PF3255

For media enquiries, contact

Karen Cook, Director, Communications

Office: +1.403.220.4361
Email: kcook@ucalgary.ca
Twitter: @ucalgarynursing

Background

Educational Background

PhD Nursing, University of Calgary, 2012

BN Nursing, Athabasca University, 2007

BA History, University of Cambridge, 1983

Registered General Nurse St. Mary’s School of Nursing, 1987

Biography

Dr. McCaffrey's research interests are nursing and humanities and trauma-informed care in addictions and mental health. He has a clinical background in mental health nursing and has always viewed mental health in relation to socio-cultural contexts. He wrote the book Nursing and Humanities (Routledge, 2020) which is the first treatment of the relationship between nursing and humanities. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Canadian Association for Health Humanities. He has expertise in hermeneutic research and has presented at the Canadian Hermeneutics Institute and the North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics on themes including interpretation of poetry from a nursing viewpoint and links between Kearney's carnal hermeneutics and nursing. 

Research

Areas of Research

Trauma informed care

Exploring how trauma-informed care is understood and taken up in practice across different settings and organizational environments. Analyzing implications of trauma-informed viewpoints for culturally sensitive care and cultural/historical context of intergenerational trauma. Implications of trauma-informed perspective for orthodox diagnostic reasoning and definitions. 

Health humanities

Disparate uses/applications of humanities methods and materials for analysis of health, illness, healthcare, promotion of health in practice settings, and professional education.

Articulation of nursing standpoint applying humanities, eg through interpretive research, arts based research, or focusing on relational experience as essential aspect of nursing practice.

Website: https://nursinghumanities.ca/ 

Hermeneutic research

Ideas in hermeneutic philosophy that have application for research and analysis of nursing or health related questions. Developments in hermeneutics and phenomenology in embodied cognition, enactivism, and carnal hermeneutics for their value to a practice profession. 

Participation in university strategic initiatives

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
NURS 614 Therapeutic Practices (Addictions and Mental Health Certificate, course #2) Winter 2022
NURS 705 Philosophy of Science in Nursing Fall 2021
NURS 385 Discipline and Profession of Nursing II Winter 2022
NURS 549 Addictions and Mental Health Nursing Fall 2021
NURS 705 Philosophy of Science in Nursing Fall 2020

Awards

  • Pursuit of Excellence Graduate Teaching Award, Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary. 2021

Publications