Virginia A. Lindabury Award

I am grateful to be a recipient of the Virginia A. Lindabury award. My experience in nursing school thus far has reinforced my initial desire to enter the profession, to combine critical thinking, clinical skills, advocacy, and interprofessional collaboration to provide optimal healthcare. In the past year, I have acted as a mentor for incoming nursing students, offering my guidance about how to navigate the U of T Nursing program. I intend to continue mentorship through preceptorship upon becoming a new graduate nurse. Additionally, this year I worked as a Peer Community Builder and Equity Activator in the student life department at U of T. In this role, I helped to facilitate workshops for the U of T student body that covered topics such as Microaggressions, Equity 101, and Creating Inclusive Environments. Ultimately, I feel that this role will positively contribute to my future career as a registered nurse as it provided me with the knowledge and tools to practice in a culturally competent manner. I am most proud of creating my own pilot workshop, titled “The Anatomy of Healthcare”. This workshop was created for other students in health-related programs to highlight the complex and interlacing factors that contribute to health disparities and experiences of health care systems. In the workshop students explored resources to build more inclusive healthcare models as well as ways of learning in the classroom. I am currently and eagerly working towards becoming registered and am especially excited to pursue a specialty in Labour and Delivery.