Sharon Nield Memorial Award

My name is Paige Grenier and I am a recent graduate, in the inaugural class of the RPN to BScN accelerated program at Western University.  

While I didn’t always feel a call to nursing, I have always been fascinated by pathophysiology. The more I learned about how the body works, the more empowered I felt to take care of my own and share my understanding with others. 

I was raised by a single mother, with three sisters. I joined a sorority while in my undergrad. I have always surrounded myself with intelligent, capable women and I want to empower as many other women as I can to develop a sense of agency over their bodies, realize their potentials -which will afford themselves choices – and therefore improve society at large.  

My passion for women’s health translated into my practice as an RPN, where I worked on a postpartum unit while completing my BScN. My favourite aspect of this job was the patient education I got to facilitate. I then completed my final nursing placement at a sexual health clinic, with a Public Health Unit.  

Public health will offer me everything I am most passionate about. I am still able to interact clinically with clients, spend large amounts of time educating and counselling clients, and advancing my research analysis and community-wide campaign development skills. The upstream approach of public health aligns strongly with my personal nursing philosophy, 

This award has granted me the confidence to pursue graduate education where my research interests include menopause research and awareness, and developing an all-encompassing women’s health app, not only used to for menstrual cycle tracking, but how to optimize each phase of the menstrual and ovulation cycles physically, emotionally, and nutritionally.