外流影片

by Jane Doucet

In the 1980s, when Dr. Catherine Morley, a professor in Acadia鈥檚 School of Nutrition and Dietetics and Harrison McCain Foundation Award recipient, began her career as a registered dietitian, she was aware that her training had prepared her to understand the science informing medical nutrition therapy, but not the complex emotions surrounding eating when sick.

鈥淣one of my instructors had talked to me about the human-to-human nature of my work,鈥� says Dr. Morley, who earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in Human Nutrition from the University of Guelph in 1979. 鈥淭aking a holistic view of an individual 鈥� looking at their environment, their economics, their spirituality 鈥� wasn鈥檛 part of any curriculum back then.鈥�

Around the same time, one of her brothers died of liver failure. When she returned to work a few days later, she was numb with grief. That鈥檚 when she realized that the individuals and families with whom she was working were experiencing similar feelings. 鈥淓very family I saw was living with grief. I thought, 鈥業 can鈥檛 believe I didn鈥檛 notice this before.鈥� What do I do now that I recognize this?鈥�

Turned to research

What Dr. Morley did was turn to research, except she found none on this topic. A few years later, she began working toward a Doctor of Philosophy in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies at the University of Calgary. Her primary research interest became how the experiences of eating and feeding change for individuals and in families when someone is sick, and the relevance of the findings for dietetic practice and education.

鈥淢y motivation was to become better at nutrition counselling, to become clearer in my understanding of what was going on for people so I could offer appropriate support,鈥� says Dr. Morley. 鈥淥nce I was in the PhD program and realized that the topic had been minimally written about, that鈥檚 when I became keen to do the research and publish in peer-reviewed journals.鈥�

Her research is rooted in the experiences of how eating and feeding are altered with changed health status. This can mean living with chronic conditions such as Parkinson鈥檚 disease or ALS (Lou Gehrig鈥檚 disease), one or more disabilities, the effects of an accident or injury, life-threatening illness, dementias, and end of life.

Human-to-human connections

Dr. Morley left British Columbia in 2011 to join the School of Nutrition and Dietetics鈥� then Director Barb Anderson (鈥�77, now Professor Emerita) at Acadia. The pair had met in the 1990s while earning master鈥檚 degrees in adult education.

鈥淏arb and I wanted to integrate food and adult education into the curriculum at Acadia,鈥� Dr. Morley says. 鈥淚t seems odd to think that food had been discounted as relevant to dietetics for decades. We wanted our students to be firmly grounded in all aspects of food. Now I get e-mails from our graduates years later saying they鈥檙e using what we talked about during their studies about the preciousness of human-to-human connections.鈥�

In February, Dr. Morley launched cathmorley.com, a website for Catherine Morley Dietetics. Its purpose is to expand the reach of research findings and includes a blog highlighting her research, FLOWS (Feeding a Loved One Who Is Sick).

鈥淢y goal with this blog is to provide insights into why eating, a familiar life-sustaining activity that we undertake several times a day, can be so emotional and, at times, emotionally challenging, not only for the person who is living with illness, but also for their caregivers and all the others who care about and for them,鈥� Dr. Morley says. 鈥淚 want to raise awareness and bring some sense of relief that this really hard situation they鈥檙e living with is 鈥榥ormal鈥�.鈥�

Her intention is to make these experiences less stressful. By deconstructing the complexities of eating and feeding at 鈥渘ormal鈥� times and then how these change with changed health status, readers of the blog will be able to assess their own situations; have a clearer idea about what鈥檚 happening and why they feel the way they do about food and eating; and make a plan of action to minimize uncertainty.

As Dr. Morley prepares to retire from a fulfilling career at Acadia, she looks forward to consulting. 鈥淐reating FLOWS and having it available to people feeds my soul. It鈥檚 what I got into this business for in the first place 鈥� to help others. Once I learned about the heavy emotions associated with eating, feeding and illness, I couldn鈥檛 unlearn it. One either does something about it or runs in the other direction, and I wanted to do something about it.鈥�