A nurse and soldier’s path to higher education

Pursuing two career paths

Narrator

Early on, Kimberly Lamarche found her life going down two different paths. There was the military where she’d grown up, and then there was her interest in nursing. She ended up pursuing both, which led her to an unusual place, studying for a master’s degree while deployed to a country recovering from war.

This is Go the Distance, a podcast from Athabasca University.  This series will share stories from one of the world’s leaders in distance and online education for the past 50 years, Athabasca University, right here in Canada. We hope it can inspire you to start your own path to education. How far will education take you?

Kimberly was born into a military family.

Lamarche

The official term is a military brat. My father was 30 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Narrator

Her family is from Nova Scotia, but she moved around a lot when she was growing up.

Lamarche

I was born on a military base in Ontario, and we moved every two years, and so that was the norm for us. We moved we had new schools, we had new friends. And my father, interestingly to me, worked within the F-18 flight simulator world, so he constantly played, as we joke, Nintendo, but creating high-tech flight simulators for jets.

So we were usually living on bases where there was, you know, a lot of jets and engine noise, and that was the norm, and it was and pretty interesting and exciting way to grow up.

Narrator

When it was time for Kimberly to choose a career, she felt torn. Part of her wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and join the military, but she was also really interested in nursing, so she decided to apply to both military training and nursing school and just see what happens.

Lamarche

Ironically, I did get accepted to the military training program and nursing at the same time, which would mean a, you know, a full-ride scholarship. I wasn’t 100% sure if the military was my path, and discussed it with a lot of smart people who said, you know, it’ll always be there next year. So I deferred my military enrolment for a year while I started my nursing.

Narrator

During that time, the Canadian Armed Forces changed their policy, temporarily suspending enrolment of any new nurses.

Lamarche

So I lost my opportunity to become trained through the military.

Entering a bleak job market in the ’90s

Narrator

So Kimberly continued her studies and got her undergraduate degree in nursing at the University of Ottawa. She graduated in the ’90s into a bleak job market.

Lamarche

There were no nursing jobs in my class of about 75 at the University of Ottawa. I think four stayed in Canada. The remainder went to the U.S. to work, and I really wanted to stay in Canada, so my only option was to stay and work on a casual basis in Nova Scotia, which I did and loved, and then apply again to the military as a direct entry nursing officer, paying my own way.

So I joined the military within six months of graduation.

Narrator

Kimberly went through full military training.

Lamarche

You know, we have a saying that you’re a soldier first, and then you’re a medical professional. I had just spent the last four years concentrating on becoming a nurse and being the best nurse I could, and nobody there cared how good of a nurse I was.

Narrator

But her academic career wasn’t over. Within a couple of years, she was studying again.

Lamarche

Again, in those days, the world was a little different, and I saw the opportunities that were around and the ability to contribute and do more. And so the idea of being an advanced-practice nurse or nurse practitioner really appealed to me. I truly am a lifelong learner. And so to me, it was the next logical step.

AU provides flexibility to study from anywhere

Narrator

Of course, just like in her youth, she was moving a lot and wouldn’t be able to attend university in person. That’s why she decided to try distance learning. So she enrolled in Athabasca University’s Masters of Health in Advanced Nursing Practice—now the Master of Nursing – Nurse Practitioner program.

Around the time she started her degree, she was deployed to Bosnia as part of a stabilization force in the years following the war.

Lamarche

I was personally attached to what we call an advanced surgical centre. So I kind of explained that to people like MASH really small. So we deployed with a 23-person medical team, including surgeons and anesthetists, trauma nurses, flight nurses, medics, medical assistants, etc.

Narrator

There wasn’t really any time off.

Lamarche

If and when you then had downtime, you were doing continual training. So you know, weapon certification, medical team, trauma training, that sort of thing.

Narrator

So she would study during her shifts.

Lamarche

It’s really high adrenaline when you get patients and you have traumas, but there is also significant downtime. So as a nursing officer, I would also do night shifts, for example. So you know, if I’m up for, you know, a 12-hour night shift all by myself in an advanced surgical centre, there’s only so many VHS tapes from home that people send you for TV shows you can watch.

Submitting assignments while on assignment

Narrator

This was 1999, in a country that was recovering from war. Needless to say, the internet capabilities weren’t what they are today.

Lamarche

So I had a very large I can, I can remember it like it was yesterday, a really large computer. I downloaded most of my assignments and my requirements before I went or when I was on, you know, had the ability then I would work through all of my assignments on a word processor. And then about once a week we had, we had computer time, you could kind of sign up for 15-minute increments.

So, you know, I’d have everything ready on a jump drive, and I would go and I would, you know, clock would start for my 15 minutes, and I would plug it in, and, you know, I’d quickly upload my assignments and then send a quick email to my husband.

Narrator

Yes, on top of everything else, Kimberly was also a newlywed, but that’s another story. The master’s program required getting clinical time with a preceptor, sort of like an apprenticeship. She was able to do some of that work with a doctor during her deployment. When she left Bosnia and returned to Alberta, she needed another preceptor, a local and that’s how she met Dr. Jennifer Knopp-Sihota.

Lamarche

I went to a conference in B.C. for the Canadian Association of Advanced Practice Nurses, and Jennifer was there as an attendee.

Jennifer Knopp-Sihota

We were actually riding a bus to a conference, and I was speaking with another person on the bus, the commuter bus, and mentioned that I was a nurse practitioner in Edmonton. And Kimberly was also attending the conference, and she, being the Kimberly that everybody knows, jumped up and said, “Hey, I’m looking for a preceptor. I’m a nurse practitioner student. Would you be interested?” Of course I was interested, and she’s such a bubbly personality, and that’s how we first met. She became my student.

Narrator

They quickly hit it off.

Knopp-Sihota

She’s very kind and caring, would do anything for her friends and family, and is very strong advocate for nursing in general and especially nurse practitioners now.

Leaving the military for academia

Narrator

Kimberly completed her graduate degree in 2002 and left her full-time job in the Armed Forces shortly after, she says she took Nova Scotia’s first full-time nurse practitioner position.

Lamarche

I received a job offer and moved to a tiny island on the coast of Nova Scotia, accessible only by two ferries, and met the most wonderful people and community members. And not only learned a ton about how to be a primary health-care nurse practitioner, but how to be an effective and a member of a community and engage in that community. It was fabulous.

So when I left the military, I worked in that location, and then I also started working part time for AU in a sessional capacity.

Narrator

Since then, she got her doctorate also at AU, where she continued to teach until 2022 when she was appointed the first dean of Cape Breton University’s nursing school. She remains friends with Jennifer Knopp-Sihota, and the relationship has since gone full circle. Kimberly helped Jennifer get a job at Athabasca U. Jennifer is now an associate professor in the Faculty of Health Disciplines. Kimberly says AU’s nursing program remains popular among members of the military.

Lamarche

We continue in our program to have many military students. It really gives that ability to, you know, meet students where they are and allow them to complete learning that’s meaningful to them. I think when I looked back, I lived in two different countries and four different provinces during my degree, so I really appreciated being able to have that continuity while I, you know, lived my my life. So, I feel lucky.

Narrator

Go the Distance is a podcast from Athabasca University. AU, Canada’s Open University has been a leader in online and distance learning for more than 50 years.

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