CLINICA L L Y S P E AKIN G
SOMETIMES YOU FIND A CAREER, AND SOMETIMES A CAREER FINDS YOU
FOR LINDA NORTON, IT WAS THE LATTER; AND IT CAUGHT HER BY SURPRISE.
Written by: DANETTE BAKER
In the Canadian seating and mobility industry, Linda Norton, M.Sc. CH, Ph.D., OT Reg.(ONT), is synonymous with best practices for treating and preventing pressure injuries in seating and mobility clients. She is an educator in academia and industry, having challenged Ontario’s recommended treatment approach for pressure injuries in the late 1990s. Norton can easily trace back to the moment — she was driving a back road in Ontario, multitasking on a conference call between lectures — when she realized she was the author of the paper being discussed by the meeting participants. For a brief moment, Norton was back at the Canadian Association of Wound Care conference battling unprecedented presentation nerves as she waited to present her paper. “I knew that sharing my findings was going to rock people’s world.” Norton’s entrance into the seating and mobility industry began a couple of years after earning her bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy. The clinic she managed for individuals with complex needs often received referrals for people with spinal cord injuries who had pressure injuries. They sought a seating system that would allow them to use their wheelchairs instead of adhering to the accepted practice for pressure injury therapy, which required 23 hours a day of bed rest. One of the consulting physicians Norton worked with seemed to have a different outlook on wound prevention and treatment. She later learned the physician was Dr. R. Gary Sibbald, professor of medicine and public health at the University of Toronto, and renowned wound care educator, clinical researcher and key opinion leader. Sibbald is also the Linda Norton working on a wheelchair for a client.
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Linda Norton presenting at a conference.
co-founder and course director of the International Interprofessional Wound Care Course (IIWCC). Norton enrolled in the IIWCC as a student at his invitation, where she delved into the current best-practice model of bed rest as an effective treatment for pressure injuries. Her research later led to the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario adopting new best-practice guidelines for treating pressure injuries that no longer included extended bed rest. “I remember thinking as I listened to the discussion on that conference call that day, ‘Wow, if it changed somebody’s practice, that’s amazing, and that’s what I want to do. A patient got different care because of something that I wrote or something that I said, and it helped the clinician challenge their current practices.’ That was exciting and something I wanted to continue to do.”
