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Why did you decide to enter the nursing profession?

Nursing is in my family, my mother was a nurse and my mother-in-law, Beverly DuGas, was of course a very well-known nurse having written many nursing textbooks. It was something I always had an inkling I'd like to do but wasn't quite sure. At 18 in order to learn a bit about how a hospital functions and get a sense if I wanted to work in a hospital environment, I took a job in the kitchen at Vancouver General Hospital. It was quite a site back in 1974. We wore mustard yellow uniforms and hair nets! One day I was cleaning trays and on that tray was a pair of false teeth. At that moment I knew for certain food service was not going to be my industry and announced that I was going to become a nurse. All joking aside though, it was something I was seriously considering and my mother's passion and love for the profession, as well as the influence of my soon to be mother-in-law, helped to solidify my decision to study nursing.

How did you get to where you are today?

After graduating from Vancouver General Hospital I moved to Prince George in 1978 and got a job at what was then the Prince George Regional Hospital, which became UHNBC. My husband and I quickly became a part of the community, and the job was exciting but also scary. Until 1981 I worked in general nursing when I decided to pursue enterostomal education later that same year (while pregnant with my second child!). I returned to Prince George as an ET nurse working in a shared position with one other ET nurse. At that time we were the only ET nurses north of Kamloops and literally had people driving hundreds of kilometers to come see us. There were just so few of us and there was no one else to fill our shoes.

It's a sad reality that patients can suffer terribly until they see an ET nurse. Our work is not the subject of coffee table conversations and people can be uncomfortable with what we do and often see it as a handicap. When you show patients how easy it can be, how full their lives can be and how they do not need to suffer because of an ostomy, a whole world opens up for them. Patients have literally cried with relief.

My job has evolved so much in the last 35 years. Technology has advanced and the care and options we can provide to patients has as well. New policies and procedures have been developed and I've been fortunate to be able to help author many of those as well as submitting proposals to increase programs for ET nurses and advocating for more ET nurses in the province in order to meet the clear demand for our services.

As a profession there is so much work to do, so much we can do to advocate for ourselves but at the end of the day what I've done has been about providing high-quality patient care. Now 39 years into my career and having reached the end, I can look back on that hard work and know that we've made a difference. It was hard sometimes, but all worth it knowing how many people have been helped.

What has been the most rewarding thing in your nursing career?

Without a doubt patients and knowing that you can make a real difference in their lives is the most rewarding element to any nursing job. I've cared for thousands of people and each one was important to me. I knew their stories, was there to help and as an ET nurse worked to treat the cause of their problem, not to simply manage the results. What's important is that as nurses, we can serve as the voice for those that don't feel they have one, or who are too sick to advocate for themselves. It's truly been my privilege to care. I love it when someone comes back to the clinic to give me a hug, to say thank you or sends me a card. It just reminds me that what we do as nurses has meaning.

What has been the most challenging?

There has not been enough of me to go around! I love my job, but it's hard to balance the demands of my job, knowing there are not enough ET nurses, with home life. I never wanted to say no and I never wanted to turn anyone away, so we did it all. I don't regret it, but it was hard.

What advice would you give to new nurses?

I would tell new nurses that it's going to get better. You will find your way and that you can do this. Use all of your supports, don't be afraid to ask that support network for help and think about the end result of your work, patient care. When I was a new nurse we were afraid to talk about our feelings, afraid for some reason to say we needed help. So my advice is hang in there, use your support networks and stick with it because it is so worth it.

Nursing is...

Caring and advocating.