Love of teaching, helping others earn Chatham nurse provincial honor

A career in nursing has provided Lori Zozzolotto the opportunity to do what she loves, teaching and helping people.

The Chatham resident has been recognized with an award of merit from the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario for her outstanding contributions to the nursing profession in Ontario.

Zozzolotto, 60, works as a clinical specialist for Convatec Canada covering Ontario and the Eastern provinces. She also has a NSWOC designation as a nurse who specializes in wound, ostomy and continence.

A few years ago she was approached by her company to travel around Ontario and the Eastern provinces to teach clinicians how to improve patient outcomes as well as help patients learn how to have better outcomes with their health.

“I thought that was an amazing platform for me to be able to do that,” Zozzolotto said. “To be able to reach a broader audience really appealed to me.”

She moved to Chatham a few years ago from the Greater Toronto Area and it didn’t take long for her to get involved by co-founding an ostomy support group here.

Zozzolotto said she met Katherine Verrall, who has an ostomy, and was surprised when Verrall told her there wasn’t an ostomy support group in Chatham.

Noting part of her job is to travel to ostomy support groups, she said, “I found it sad that there wasn’t an ostomy support group in my own hometown.”

The two women formed the Chatham ostomy support group in December, which has grown to nearly 40 members. The group meets monthly at Christ Church in Chatham.

“That’s been a great experience.”

Noting ostomy patients receive six to eight weeks of “great care” from nurses, before they have to start caring for themselves, Zozzolotto said, “Ostomy support groups are very important.”

She added it takes up to 10 months for them to really get their feet on the ground and feel OK.

Zozzolotto also devotes time to advocating and supporting nurses.

Following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes on May 25, 2020, Zozzolotto began looking at how she could help Black nurses.

She became involved with the Ontario Black nurses’ network and later asked to be their development officer.

“From there, we created our own Black leadership network,” Zozzolotto said, adding she teaches a course on conflict management.

“There is, unfortunately, a lot of conflict in nursing,” she said, adding studies show there is a high incidence of nurses being physically assaulted on the job.

When Nurses Specialized in Wound, Ostomy and Continence Canada, of which Zozzolotto is a member, began talking about how they wanted to promote diversity, she became involved with the organization’s national diversity task force.

Zozzolotto said this has included doing a lot of work with Indigenous nurses to promote good health outcomes for the Indigenous population.

The work also has involved promoting LGBTQ to bring more diversity into the nursing organization, she said.

Although her job and advocacy efforts keep her busy, Zozzolotto also finds a way to take it to the next level when she gets involved in community groups for relaxation and enjoyment.

A lover of community theatre, after moving to Chatham a few years ago, she became involved with Theater Kent. Since then she has started a monthly theatrical writers group. She also has a fledging film production company on the go, with some friends she met at a filmmaking course, who are gearing up to shoot their third short film later this summer.

“I’m very busy, I’m very community-oriented and I guess I have hard time saying, ‘No,” said Zozzolotto.

She began volunteering at age 16 when she helped with the Special Olympics and hasn’t slowed down since.

“I just have a love of people and of volunteering.”

Zozzolotto admits being surprised and honored to receive the RNAO honour, especially since there are 50,000 nurses in the association.

She added: “I thought it was amazing I got an award for doing what I considered to be the right thing, which is promoting nursing, promoting diversity in nursing and the world that I work in.”