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Education

Season of Giving

Throughout the challenges of the last number of years, we are grateful nurses have continued to do their jobs, caring for us when we are at our most vulnerable. We are also grateful that there are many who continue to choose nursing as their profession. Since 1979, Registered Nurses Foundation of BC has financially supported those entering schools of nursing as well as those who require further education to meet the needs of a complex health care system.

This year, the Foundation received many more applications from RNs, LPNs and RPNs than we could support. Sadly, we have had to disappoint many qualified applicants.

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Goal: Public Health Nursing

I am writing to express my immense gratitude for the financial support that you have provided to me through the St. Joseph’s School of Nursing Alumnae Bursary. I was thrilled when I learned I had been chosen for this bursary for the fourth year in a row. I am truly and utterly grateful.

I am currently in my fourth and final year of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Vancouver Island University and am about to start my final preceptorship. I will be practicing at the Ts’ewulhtun Health Centre in the Cowichan Valley in order to pursue my strong passion for Public Health Nursing and empowering people in my hometown to live healthy lives.

I am proud to be following my grandma’s footsteps and starting my nursing journey exactly 60 years after she did. My grandma (Anita McDonald) has influenced me throughout my entire life and has taught me to persevere when facing adversity. I am beyond proud to be taking after her and to be continuing her legacy. As I prepare for my graduation and pinning ceremony, I reflect on how meaningful it is for me to follow my grandma and become an RN. I was given her St. Joseph’s Nursing School graduation pin and she intends to place it on me during my own pinning ceremony. I cannot begin to express how much of an honour it is to be continuing her legacy and carrying on the St. Joseph’s name.

The pandemic has made nursing school an even more difficult process than it already is and has caused a lot of financial stress. The funds from this bursary have helped me immensely by providing some peace of mind, allowing me to focus on my studies. This has brought me one step closer to graduating and becoming an RN. Thank you again for your incredible generosity and support.

Sincerely,

Savanna McDonald

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My Goal is Nurse Informatics or Manager

My name is Angela Sunarjo. I am a first-year, second semester nursing student at the BCIT BSN program. I know that there are not many materials that I have learned yet, but so far, I have been enjoying the nursing clinical class. I like it because I am finally able to actually apply my nursing knowledge into practice and have real human interactions. At current moment, my end goal is to become either a nurse informatics or a nurse that focus in the management aspect of health care. My goal is shaped this way because have a previous background of majoring in business informatics for almost 2 years prior to nursing school.

The purpose of this letter is to express how grateful I am for the bursary provided through RNFBC. Like many other students, I find it a financial struggle to be a full-time student as I have to cut my work hours so that I can do well in school and give the best care for my patients during clinical. Receiving this bursary money is very helpful for me since now I can finally replace my five-year-old laptop that has a broken mic with a new one. Since the middle of this October, having a broken mic had created a barrier for me to learn optimally since it made me unable to participate easily during online class discussions. As Black Friday is coming up, I will try to find the best deal for a laptop and allocate the rest of the money to help lessen my nursing school tuition fee for the upcoming semester.

I am very grateful for this donation. Your donation has made me feel appreciated and supported as a student nurse. This motivates me even more to do better in nursing school and be more committed to learn how to be a good nurse for my patients. In the future, I will try my best to repay this kindness forward in order to help future student nurses.

Once again, I would like to express my gratitude for creating the RNABC Nursing Education Bursary. I am very grateful for this gift.

Sincerely,

Angela Sunarjo

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How My Bursary Helped

I am honoured to receive the Registered Nurses Foundation of BC Challenge Bursary for 2021. When I first started nursing school, I pictured myself going into emergency nursing, where the environment is fast-paced and exciting. However, during my third year, I did a clinical placement in the impoverished Downtown Eastside, where I saw first-hand the health disparities caused by unequal distribution of social determinants of health and oppressive social policies. I’ve been working there since, and although I love my job and the people I work with, I felt like I wasn’t making a difference. People were still dying to poisoned drugs, people were still being displaced from their homes, people were still falling through the gaps.

I applied for the Master of Public Health program at the University of British Columbia, with the ambition to learn how to enact change at a population level through health policies. Somewhere along the journey, I also discovered an interest in teaching. I want future nurses to think about health beyond the hospital walls, to think about societal and historical factors that can impact health. I think if we can do that, we will also be more kind and tolerant towards those who are marginalized.

I am truly grateful for this opportunity. Your donation will help me finish my master program, which will prepare me to be a strong advocate and leader for our communities, as well as allow me to be an educator for future nurses. Thank you once again for your generosity.

Sincerely,

Conrad So

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Celebrating Nursing Week

CELEBRATING NURSING WEEK

What is Nursing Week all about?

National Nursing Week in Canada takes place every year to celebrate nurses and the work they do. This year, it will take place May 9th to 15th.  The date is set to coincide l with International Nurses Day, which is celebrated on May 12th – Florence Nightingale’s birthday.

Each year Nursing Week has a theme

A theme for Nursing Week is established each year. For  2022, the theme is #WeAnswerTheCall. It was designed to acknowledge the work of the many, many thousands of Canadian nurses and recognize the commitment and courage they demonstrate every day caring for people in hospitals and communities across Canada.

The 2022 theme also draws attention to the shortage of nurses in Canada. With an aging nursing workforce, and growing demands for more nurses to support expanding health care services, a shortage of almost 60,000 full-time equivalent nurses is anticipated by 2023 .

To address the need for more nurses in BC, the BC Government has announced that 602 new seats in post-secondary nursing programs will be added to the existing post-secondary nursing seats in BC. Clearly, the BC Government is “#AnsweringTheCall.”

RNFBC’s Role in Nursing Week

RNFBC was established in 1979, “to advance nursing practice and education”. It has done so by providing bursaries to nursing students resident  in BC to offset nursing education costs. To meet its goals, the RNFBC  (volunteer) Directors and members (many of whom are or were nurses) have focused on building needed resources to support students. These efforts have allowed RNFBC to provide bursaries to more than 200 nurses enrolled in educational programs in 2021 – and it aims to do even more to meet increasing requests.

Growing demands have made RNFBC very aware of the need to support even more nurses – Licensed Practical Nurses, Psychiatric Nurses, Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners – with their education programs. Additional educational support will help to build a strong nursing workforce that will, in turn, help to sustain BC’s health care system. The Directors and members of RNFBC are ready to #AnswerTheCall

We are counting on support from our past, current and future donors and members to help meet our goal too. Resources to significantly increase the number of BC nurses engaged in education in the coming years are much needed. By working together, we will show that we all recognize the value of nurses and that we all – including our donors – are willing to #AnswerTheCall!

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