Frances Mary Stoddart Award

I chose to become a Registered Nurse because I’ve had a lot of positive influences throughout my life from nurses such as my brother, my mentors, and some of my close friends. I also began to develop a passion for healthcare from my volunteering experiences as a first responder and work experience as a military medic. These experiences and influences led me to enroll in McMaster’s BScN program in 2017 after finishing my Honours Kinesiology Degree.

I’ve just graduated from McMaster’s School of Nursing and am excited to begin my career! I think my biggest accomplishment from Nursing school is coordinating with the McMaster faculty and health sciences students from the Nursing, Physician Assistant, and Medical Doctor programs at McMaster to create a First Response Resuscitation Workshop. Our intent was for students to become more comfortable and skilled in responding to these anxiety invoking situations, and it was such a great success that the McMaster Centre for Simulation-Based Learning hopes to continue it in future years.

Something else that I am proud of is how much work I’ve done throughout these 2 years of Nursing by putting myself out there. Whether it’s working together with a professor on a project or taking on large leadership roles in Nursing or interprofessional societies; throwing myself into these daunting situations led to a lot of personal growth as I made my way through them.