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First-year nursing student wins CIBC bursary to assist pursuit of lifelong career goal

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A Yellowknife Aurora College student who hopes to become a registered nurse in four years recently got a boost from a new CIBC bursary aiming to support the next generation of health-care workers. 

Therese Petak-Dube, a first-year student with Aurora College, is one of 133 students across Canada to receive a CIBC bursary related to Covid-19 supports.
photo courtesy of Therese Petak-Dube

Therese Petak-Dube, 32, a clerical supervisor with the diagnostic imaging service at Stanton took leave last year and made a big jump in her life to return to school. 

As a first-year Aurora College bachelor of science nursing student, she's one of 133 students across the country who received a $2,500 CIBC Future Heroes Bursary to go toward tuition and book costs for the 2020-2021 academic year.

In her letter of intent, Petak-Dube explained that as a person who has Type 1 diabetes, as well as having a son coping with the same condition, there's a need to improve how treatment is offered in the Northwest Territories. From her experience during those treatments, medical staff often seem overworked and could use additional supports.

“I would like to help ramp up our diabetes services here in Yellowknife,” she said. “Diabetes, in all of its forms, is a very prominent condition in the Northwest Territories and I feel that it would benefit our community, our territory and our residents to have someone willing to commit their time and energy to the diabetes program here.”

Petak-Dube said she's enjoying the nursing program, which put her back in a school setting for the first time in more than a decade. 

Her employer, the GNWT, is helping to pay for tuition and the CIBC bursary will help to cover tuition and books for one semester.

"I was able to apply for leave of absence to attend school and my employer was super supportive of that, but it has also meant being unemployed for the first time in 10 to 12 years," she said. "CIBC's help means less money that the government will have to spend on my studies and I appreciate that as a taxpayer."

For her, the funding helps achieve a life-long dream.

"I have always wanted to be a nurse, honestly, since I was a kid but I had put it off because I was afraid," she said. "I had low self-confidence and was worried that I would not do well or that I would fail."

A reminder of her life calling 

Working in a health-care environment, however, reminded her how much she wanted to achieve her life's calling and particularly the desire to work more directly with patients.

"Much of my work efforts have had an impact on health services but my role has been more administrative and in the background," she said. "I wanted to be more client-focused and interacting with clients directly."

So far, her studies seem to be going well as she prepares for exams next week, she added.

"Covid definitely has had an impact on our education this year because we aren't allowed to be in class in-person and that is different because nursing is so interactive," she said, noting that her classwork usually involves most of her other 25 schoolmates in Microsoft Teams web classrooms.

She has generally adapted, although troublesome technical glitches have occasionally arisen.

She hopes, however, to be studying in-person with her classmates soon.

Tribute to frontline health-care workers

The CIBC created the $500,000 bursary program for Canadian students as a tribute to frontline health-care workers who have been fighting Covid-19. 

Anna Ferguson, a CIBC communications and public affairs spokesperson, said the selection of bursary recipients is made by a committee of Canadian university and college representatives chosen by Universities Canada.

"We opened up an application to give students who are going to school this year (2020-21) and the coming year (2021-22) an opportunity" to seek funding, explained Ferguson. "Based on their financial need, their essay (has to) then talk about their personal ambition and their academic excellence."