Debbie Rickeard
Dr. Rickeard is an Experiential Learning Specialist and faculty member at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Nursing. She has a diverse clinical background in the areas of critical care, heart failure, cardiac transplant, and medical surgical nursing. Aside from almost 40 years of clinical practice, Dr. Rickeard has been a clinical educator and faculty at both the university and college levels. Content areas taught include medical-surgical classes in the second and third year of the program, anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, and a fourth-year transition into practice class. Along with theory classes, Dr. Rickeard co-manages the simulation lab. Scenarios are developed for each year of the undergraduate program as well as the graduate level in collaboration with the School of Medicine.
Dr. Rickeard has developed and presented in national, international, and local conferences and workshops. The most recent was through the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing on Building Practice Competencies Virtually Among Baccalaureate Nursing Students. During the three sessions of the workshop, presentation participants learned how to select virtual simulation modalities to develop practice competencies among their students, including clinical reasoning, clinical judgement, relational abilities, and technical and procedural skills. Through funding from the Ontario government, Dr. Rickeard was instrumental in developing virtual simulation games (VSGs) for the nurse practitioner programs. The development of the VSGs and the pivoting from face-to-face simulation have been presented at research conferences through the University of Windsor.
Dr. Rickeard is a board member of the Tau Upsilon university chapter and the National League for Nursing. As well, she sits on the board of the Patient, Family, and Caregiver Partnership Council of the Windsor-Essex Ontario Health Team.