OFCA DIRECTOR OF POLICY & ETHICS
Katherine Tomas
Podortho® Foot Specialist, RN, BScN, Entrepreneur, Clinic Owner
Katherine is a Registered Nurse who graduated from Laurentian University in 2012 with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She has worked the majority of her Nursing career in emergency medicine which took her to the west coast and eventually back to her hometown of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.
Kat values the closeness of community and always intended to come back home to raise her two young daughters thus creating a balanced healthy home and work life for herself and her family.
Kat came across the Podortho Foot Specialist program offered to Nurses while on her second maternity leave recognizing the need for foot and lower limb care in her northern and underserviced community. Kat, saw an opportunity to become a nurseprenuer that would provide her with a healthy work and home life balance and allow for improved flexibility in her schedule providing her with the time required to raise her young children and prioritize her families needs while continuing to utilize her nursing designation.
Kat has been able to utilize available funding through community resource program initiatives to assist with funding her business and open her own foot and lower limb care clinic.
She has been welcomed in her community with open arms by her clients, friends, family, and fellow colleagues. Since opening her practise, she has been very busy meeting the significant shortage of foot and lower limb care in her northern community. Kat has learned through her Podortho Foot Specialist program the concepts of delivering quality care while utilizing her nursing knowledge, skill, and judgment to develop an individual scope of specialized practise while promoting overall health, wellness, mobility, and comfort.
Kat is no stranger to working in the not-for-profit space and in many volunteer positions and recognizes the need for advocation for health care providers who have augmented their skills and education and taken the leap to become entrepreneurs to meet community health care needs. Like Kat, many Nurses now work in the field of medical foot and lower limb care. She believes the benefit of seeing a Nurse for their foot and lower limb health needs is beneficial given a Nurses vast knowledge in health care obtained through their entry to practise competencies. Nurses/Podortho Foot Specialist offer a whole of client care experience with a focus on health teaching and preventative care measures. The goal of a Nurse/Podortho Foot Specialist is to improve their client’s health outcomes while maintaining individual independence to remain at home, be self sufficient and continue to participate in their communities and social events which aligns well with the new Ontario government initiative to ensure care is more accessible in communities across Ontario.
OFCA welcomes Kat as our Director of Policy & Ethics. Kat is sure to bring her well established education and experience to OFCA while ensuring our members and the public are well supported through professional channels and advocation.
