Internationally known nurse scientist reflects on career

Even on the day she walked across the stage to receive her BSc degree in Nursing from McMaster University, Dr. Kathryn King-Shier, RN, PhD, seemed to know her future would focus more on research than clinical work.

“I told my parents ‘I am going to be back,’” says King-Shier, a professor in the University of Calgary’s (UCalgary) Faculty of Nursing, adding the support she received as a newly single mom was tremendous.   

The statement predicting her return to academia was very accurate as she returned to graduate school a decade later with experience working as a front-line nurse in community health, critical care, cardiology and cardiac surgery. 

Her original plan had been to only complete her masters, but upon graduation, King-Shier found herself in an unfavourable job market and decided to continue her studies at the University of Alberta, where a new PhD program had been launched. 

She augmented her education by working with Susan Gortner, a leading nurse scientist in cardiovascular health, located at the University of California San Francisco. 

“It was an incredible experience, and it was kind of like it was all supposed to happen,” says King-Shier of her graduate school experience.

Following her PhD, King-Shier completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of Cardiology (EPICORE Centre), University of Alberta to extend her research experience. 

University of Calgary recruitment

King-Shier was recruited to UCalgary’s Faculty of Nursing in 1999. Bolstered by Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) funding for 13 years, King-Shier was able to focus on her passion: research. 

When King-Shier began her research career, there were very few nurse researchers, and it was a bit of an adjustment for her colleagues at first.  

“When I started there weren’t many like me, and the general attitude was that I should focus on teaching or being a research nurse for a medical scientist,” says King-Shier. “But I was an independent researcher writing my own grants.” 

King-Shier was determined to make a difference, so she persevered. Her research program evolved over the years, but more recently focused on examining and describing the influence of ethnicity, culture, and gender on cardiovascular disease symptoms, access to care, and secondary prevention activities, which involves detecting and treating disease in its early stages. 

King-Shier found early and continued success. She was the first person in UCalgary’s Faculty of Nursing to receive a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant and held competitive research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. 

King-Shier’s scientific contributions are vast, particularly when it comes to the insights she gained while working with and researching diverse communities. 

“Not only can language be an issue, but people from different cultures think about life and their future in very different ways,” says King-Shier. “So how we speak about heart disease to different ethic groups also has to be different to get buy-in.” 

According to King-Shier, culture goes beyond the obvious and must be considered if researchers want to improve health outcomes at a population level. 

“There are cultural differences between individuals living in an urban versus a rural setting, for example” says King-Shier, adding gender is another key factor to consider.  

King-Shier’s research abilities led to international renown. She sat on the advisory board for the CIHR’s Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health from 2003-2008 and was a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing and the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

She was a member of and chaired peer-review committees for the Heart and Stroke Foundation for nearly 30 years. For this, she was awarded a King Charles III medal in 2025.  

Locally, King-Shier also flourished. She served as Associate Dean of Graduate Programs in the Faculty of Nursing for five years, where she oversaw the creation of UCalgary’s Doctor of Nursing program, along with three new graduate nursing certificates. 

On the road to retirement, King-Shier says finding ways to integrate diverse members of society into research studies, rather than taking the current siloed approach, is critical for improving the health of everyone. 

“I recently had a PhD graduate whose research focused on cardiac rehabilitation,” she says. “Some of his findings were that there are some differences between what people in different ethnic groups need and expect, but they are subtle.”

For King-Shier, this solidifies the importance of person-centred care—with an awareness of how culture and other factors can impact patients. 

King-Shier has some advice for young cardiovascular researchers that’s based on her own personal experience working in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine. 

“I couldn’t have accomplished what I did without the support of my colleagues, including Dr. Bill Ghali and Dr. Hude Quan, as well as my research manager of 18 years, Pam LeBlanc,” she says. “Experiences with these individuals taught me the importance of working in an interdisciplinary environment. Looking at a problem from different points of view makes the whole discussion richer and the outcome so much better.” 

King-Shier is a professor in UCalgary’s Faculty of Nursing and in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine. She is a member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute, where she is affiliated with the Libin Person to Population Initiative, a research collaborative with the goal of exposing and addressing cardiovascular health inequities in Alberta and beyond.