Operations Team

Working together as a small team the Operations Team at NSHEN collaborates closely to manage all Network requests, projects, and events.

 

KRISTA MLECZKO-SKERRY

Administrator

Krista Mleczko-Skerry is the Administrator for the Nova Scotia Health Ethics Network. Her primary responsibilities include managing NSHEN administratively, coordinating Network education and events, and liaising with Network partners throughout the province.

Krista has worked within the IWK Health Centre for 10 years before joining NSHEN in August 2010. Krista looks forward to building new relationships within the Nova Scotia Health Ethics Network and various health districts across the province.  

 

JEFF KIRBY, MD, MA

Ethics Consultant

Jeff Kirby is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University. As a health ethics consultant with a combined background in medicine and philosophy, his primary responsibilities are with the Department of Bioethics’ formal Ethics Collaborations with Capital Health, the IWK Health Centre and NSHEN. His work includes the provision of comprehensive ethics support for health policy development and organizational and complex clinical ethics consultations. Dr. Kirby teaches ethics-related topics and concepts to undergraduate medical students and post-graduate residents, and works with government and health care organizations to enhance their capacity for ethics-informed decision making at multiple organizational levels. His particular areas of research interest are organizational ethics and social justice.

Dr. Kirby works part time as a physician psychotherapist at Dalhousie University Health Services.

CHRISTY SIMPSON, PhD

Ethics Collaborations Coordinator

Christy Simpson is an associate professor in the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie University. She is the coordinator for the ethics-based collaborations between the Department, Capital Health and the IWK Health Centre, as well as the newly formed Nova Scotia Health Ethics Network. Her primary responsibilities include ethics education and capacity-building, policy development and review, and support for clinical and organizational ethics consultations.

Christy completed her doctorate in philosophy, specializing in bioethics, at the Department of Philosophy at Dalhousie University in 2001. During her doctoral studies, Christy also undertook two clinical practicums at local health care facilities, which stimulated her interest in the role of hope in health care. Her research in this area continued during a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alberta (2000-2002) and is still strong today, in conjunction with health care ethics. Other research interests include rural bioethics and organizational ethics.

MARIKA WARREN, PhD

Health Care Ethicist

Marika Warren is an assistant professor with the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie University and a health care ethicist for the Nova Scotia Health Ethics Network (NSHEN). Her role with NSHEN involves building ethics capacity in Nova Scotia by providing ethics support such as education, consultation, and assistance with policy development. Marika also be participates in ethics research and collaborations as a member of the Ethics Collaborations Team.

Marika completed a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation focused on equality rights in the case of severe cognitive disability.  She gained additional experience in bioethics as an undergraduated reserach assistant at the University of Alberta's John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre for a project entitled “Relational Ethics: Foundation for Health Care” and through work for the Provincial Health Ethics Network (PHEN) in Alberta between 1999 and 2008.

Marika’s broad research interest is in social justice and equality, particularly in the context of health and health care.  Specific areas of current interest include policy and organizational ethics, social determinants of health, relational conceptions of autonomy, feminist bioethics, the intersection of academic and clinical bioethics, and disability rights.