Nurse finds her place in the world is at home

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Donna Brule knew from the look on the young mother's face that she had made an impact, and in that moment the young nurse knew the satisfaction of making a difference in the lives of others and she embraced her role in the community as caregiver.

Brule had just graduated from the University of Alberta with a nursing degree and was conducting a home visit with the new mom.

"I remember I was doing a physical assessment with her newborn baby and I was teaching her about her baby ...and the look on her face, for her to gain that knowledge about her child was ultimate satisfaction and it was like 'Yes, yes. I'm imparting knowledge. I'm empowering this woman, and that was just like it...I fell in love with nursing."

To be a nurse is very special, she said, but to be an Aboriginal nurse working in a First Nation community, now that is special indeed. Few other nursing opportunities offer the same breadth of experience, the same sense of adventure, the same level of personal or professional satisfaction, said Brule, a Mikasew Cree Nation member who spent much of her working life providing care in her mother's home community of Wabasca.

"We have a lot to offer our people."

Brule began her career in 1983 after graduating from a 10-month licensed practical nurses program offered in Yellowknife. She went to work in Wabasca with the Bigstone Cree Nation working alongside a registered nurse.

"We provided 24-hour care. The physicians came into the community during the day and left at the end of the evening, so then, after evening, it was just us. So whatever came through the door, that's what we took care of."

But as a licensed practical nurse, Brule felt limited by the scope of her duties. By 1986, she had come to the conclusion that she wanted more out of her career. She wanted to administer the meds. She wanted to give the needles. Brule wanted to be able to carry out the full range of activities of a registered nurse, so back to school she went, this time for four years.

Having the 10-month nursing program under her belt and three years of experience to draw from, Brule had an advantage when it came to the nursing program's hospital requirements, but it wasn't smooth sailing through the course load, she admitted.

"I was not OK with sciences. What I had to do in my second year of nursing was, because I hadn't taken chemistry in high school, I challenged the high school chemistry and was successful and was able to continue on with my degree. So I actually entered without chemistry, but had to complete that in my second year and did that at night school at Vic Composite. That was quite a year," she said.

The nursing degree required her to do a lot of reading and a lot of writing, but she was so happy in her pursuit of the degree that it seemed like less hard work than struggling through high school, said Donna Brule.

"I loved it so much, and I loved learning and I loved everything about nursing, so it was easier to complete that because I had a love for it, rather than to complete high school, which I forget half of what I did anyway."

Once she finished her degree, Brule went back to Wabasca and immediately into community health, which deals with health promotion and education.

"Prevention rather than the active treatment," she explained.

And the benefits of working on reserve began to be realized.

"Being able to work with your own people. Being able to do the teaching and see the growth and the improvement in health, decisions made by people. Being able to make a difference in the life of someone in your community. Being part of and contributing to the promotion, health promotion." These were all the things that made her work in the community worthwhile, she said.

But she acknowledged there were challenges to coming home to work.

"One example that I remember: the chief in the community referring to me as the little girl. And that's the way he saw me, as the little girl. But now o be the nurse in charge, you know? That's the challenge, to wear that hat and to still be seen by some of the Elders in the community as the little girl that you'll always be."

The benefits of being First Nations and working in a First Nation community far outweighed the challenges, she said, and the people appreciated all that she had to offer.

"It's so important that we go back and we help our people because we know where they're coming from. We know some of things they've gone through. We live with our parents who have been through residential schools and we're able to just see from the inside and help. We do have a lot of credibility, you know, being from that culture."

National Nursing Week will be commemorated on May 9 to 15. Brule said there are about 160 nurses working with First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, and there are about 130 nurses employed directly by the First Nations. They deliver the community health nursing to the people on Alberta's reserves.

Brule wants to honor their commitment to providing the services and the programs, and encourage others to consider nursing as a career.

Brule now works in Edmonton at the regional level with the maternal/child health program "giving voice to the Aboriginal perspective... and making sure that that's included when we're looking at different programs and services that are being delivered to the women on reserve."

But she often misses working on reserve.

"That was why I went into nursing in the first place was the love of interacting with the people and teaching. There is no satisfaction like sitting with a new mom and helping her to learn about her child and to know that when you give her information, she's so appreciative. There's no satisfaction like that," she said."