Dr. Dorothy J. Kergin Fellowship

As I reflect upon my 18-year nursing career, I recall what led me to become a nurse: a desire to support individuals across their healthcare experiences and a passion for learning. Upon graduation, my identity as a nurse took shape in my work as a nurse in Woman and Child health, and it was an honour to support patients and their families in the clinical setting.

In 2014, a turning point in my nursing career, was my first role within nursing education as a clinical instructor. It was the first clinical rotation for many of the students in my first clinical group. I will never forget this group – we learned together during that rotation. Through this experience I realized that I had more ‘becoming’ to do as a nurse, and I made the decision to pursue graduate studies with a focus on nursing education.

Today, I continue to ‘become’ in my nursing career as a PhD candidate at the University of Manitoba’s College of Nursing. I am a teaching assistant in the undergraduate nursing program, and I volunteer at the University of Manitoba’s International Centre, where I help to support the transitions of international students. In my proposed research, through arts-based methods, I hope to contribute further understandings of the teaching-learning relationships between nurse educators and students in today’s globalized learning environments. I am grateful to be the recipient of the Dr. Dorothy J. Kergin Fellowship. Thank you to the Canadian Nurses Foundation for supporting my on-going ‘becoming’ as a nurse.