Lise Fillion

Lise Fillion is leading figure in nursing with a spectacular career behind her. Her widely recognized contributions to research and teaching have raised the profile of the Faculty of Nursing and Université Laval itself both nationally and internationally.

An academic of renown

Professor Fillion has made a significant contribution to knowledge acquisition in her areas of interest, which are stress and how people live with cancer throughout disease trajectory, including end-of-life care.

She has a total of more than 115 publications and 250 scientific papers relating to psycho-oncology, screening for distress, and the psychosocial needs of people living with cancer. An article of hers received the Best Article Award from Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal in 2017, and she received the Best Poster Award at the International Psycho-Oncology Society World Congress in 2014.

Her passion has been put to work supervising many of graduate-level students. She supervised the her Faculty’s first candidate for a Ph. D. in nursing and has been director or co-director of many more master’s students and doctoral candidates since then both in the Faculty of Nursing and in other faculties and universities.

As a professor, Lise Fillion has continued teaching with five undergraduate courses and one graduate course on interprofessional collaboration. She has completed more than 20 professional development programs in her field of research and teaching, which she has applied in her courses.

Her research has garnered recognition from her peers throughout her career. She was funded as a research fellow and has been awarded 40 research grants from outside institutions, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and MSSS – Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux.

A pioneer in her profession

Some of her projects have been notably innovative and important in clinical and evaluative research and for society as a whole. Many have had a significant impact within the community, such as her work to define the role and promote the use of oncology nurse navigators in Québec, the rest of Canada, and elsewhere in the world.

She helped implement an oncology distress screening program that was recognized by Accreditation Canada as a leading practice. In addition to her work in oncology, the emotional security and workplace well-being programs she established for palliative care workers have been socially transformative.

Lise Fillion has received many honours from CHU de Québec – Université Laval, including appointment as a researcher emeritus, a Grand prix Sirius award for the distress screening protocol she brought in, and a Prix Sirius for launching the nursing research unit.

She also received the Innovation in Nursing Award from Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec, the Exemplary Practices award from the Québec Oncology Program, and the Rachel Bureau Award from Ordre régional des infirmières et infirmiers de Québec. An article of hers was selected Best Scientific Article of 2010 by the Robert Sauvé Occupational Health and Safety Research Institute.

She has been a member of various professional associations and scientific committees in the course of her career, including the Michel-Sarrazin Research Team in Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care and the Québec Network for Palliative and End-of-Life Care Research.

Professor Fillion has also been involved in Faculty and University committees, including as a member of the steering committee of the Faculty of Nursing’s Teaching and Research Fund and the restructuring committee for graduate psychology studies.

Her work to promote well-being, mindfulness, and compassion continues to this day. She is a model of excellence and engagement, leaving an enduring legacy in her field.