Since becoming the Director of the Nursing Peer Mentorship Program (NPMP) for students in 2015, she has become a consultant for other national and international nursing schools in helping them develop their mentorship programs for nursing students. In 2016, she was the recipient of the Excellence in Academic Advising by the Dean of Students and the UU直播 Faculty of Medicine Excellence in Teaching Award.
Why did you choose to become a nurse?
I started off studying exercise science/kinesiology. I really enjoyed everything about it, until I started reflecting on my future and where I was going. I quickly realized that the field of nursing was where I really wanted to be. From both familial and personal experiences of dealings with chronic illnesses, I was always intrigued by the potential of nursing, and I then applied to study nursing, and to pursue it as a career.
What is your area of expertise or specialization and why?
My clinical experience and expertise is community-health nursing. I worked in the Emergency Room (ER), and medical-surgical units at the Montreal General Hospital (MGH) at the beginning of my career as a bachelor-prepared nurse. I then transferred this experience to community health, where I worked in the CLSC and CSSS networks for close to two decades. I started my community-health practice at the Westmount Branch of the CLSC Metro. The UU直播 School of Nursing initiated this branch and it was entirely composed of graduate nurses. My colleagues and the potential of my chosen profession inspired me. My work focused on following families, primarily older adults and families with school age children, a practice which is very similar to today鈥檚 Nurse Practitioner in a primary-care role; we were linked with physicians at the CLSC Metro and would refer to them as needed. Considering that this was all happening in the early 90鈥檚, it is refreshing to see that the potential of nursing has resurfaced through the Nurse Practitioner program. I engaged with pre- and- post-partum families, school-aged children, and was a school-health nurse in elementary and high schools as well as colleges. I initiated my career in nursing management from being a team leader of the enfance-famille-jeunesse (EFJ) nursing team, to the EFJ multidisciplinary team, to a CSSS program consultant, to nursing consultant and lastly to the interim Director of Nursing for the CSSS de la Montagne.
What motivated you to join the faculty at the Ingram School of Nursing?
Based on my community-health experience, Dr. Susan French came to recruit me to teach a women鈥檚 health course in 2001. Initiating the early negotiations with the Director General, she was able to have me be liberated to teach two days a week at the school and continue with my clinical work for the other three days, while holding onto my full-time position at the CLSC. After teaching one course, I was hooked. The combined experience of clinical and academic worlds allowed me to stay-up-to date on the profession, and to be able to have an influence on our next generation of nurses. I was offered a full-time faculty position by the former Director of the School of Nursing at UU直播 while consulting for another position and seeking mentorship. Instead of mentorship, I gained a full-time position as a faculty lecturer in 2011.
What do you love the most about your job?
Working with young nursing students and seeing their curiosity bloom over their years of study intrigues me. Being privileged to work with them over time and seeing them from grow, from the Professionalism Ceremony to Graduation day, in the nurse peer mentorship program (NPMP) and Nightingale Fellows Program, I am privy to seeing each one develop over three years. Their continuation at graduation in the NPMP as mentors and their return as Nightingale Fellows, allows me to see a change in our nursing graduates and their willingness to give back to their fellow nurses. This inspires me and gives me hope that our nursing profession will be stronger than it has been, and it will allow nursing transitions to be healthier for our students and new nursing clinicians.
What are top three (doesn鈥檛 have to be three, could be one, could be ten!) things you want people to know about nursing in general?
- Nursing is an inspiring career. It is a healthcare profession that allows you to work with an individual and their family at every step of their development - from conception to post-death grieving. As nurses, we are privileged to share people鈥檚 most traumatic challenges to their most uplifting healing. By working with their strengths and skills, along with our fellow nurses and other healthcare workers, we create healing environments for them to maximize their wellbeing.
- Nursing is a challenging career and there is no limit to what one can achieve. The opportunities in nursing are immense 鈥� from bedside nursing to education, to administration, to travel nursing, to informatics, to consultants, to interprofessional work, all to improve the health of our patients. Nurses can work in a variety of different environments.
- Nursing is an ever-expanding profession, which requires nurses to never stop learning. Every new challenge translates into a learning experience.
- 听Leadership opportunities in nursing are never ending. Nurses are leaders at the bedside, developing future leaders as educators, mentoring new researchers as researchers, providing guidance and advocacy as community-health nurses and/or nurse practitioner and developing healthy policies effecting the wellbeing of all in public health.
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