With nursing as one of the most in-demand professions in the province, one Campbell River family is doing its part to help the labour market.

At North Island College’s pinning ceremony for graduating nurses this spring, Callum Gimson asked his mother Shauna McGregor, also a nurse, to pin him, as he had finished his four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) at the Comox Valley campus. The pinning ceremony is a tradition for graduating nurses that dates back more than a century.

Callum also served as one of the historians for the class, as he and a classmate made a presentation about their experiences. Meanwhile, joining Callum’s mom in the audience was his sister, Emily, who having finished her prerequisites, will be starting the BSN program this fall.

Raising two future nurses was not something Shauna expected when she started. She had planned to start her program at the NIC Comox Valley campus (in partnership with Vancouver Island University) in 2007, but daughter Emily was born, which delayed her for a year. She graduated in 2012 and started her nursing career as a casual at Campbell River Hospital, then began working at Campbell River Community Health Services in 2018.

“It was awesome to have experience in the hospital and in the community because you see the connections,” she said.

Currently, she works remotely with Community Virtual Care, part of Community Health Services. From her home, her work includes chronic disease monitoring and managing, among other services.

“They really, really needed people, and I was already trained for it,” she added.

For Callum, nursing was not his first choice as he and his older brother Brody took the dual-credit pre-engineering at NIC, then went to the University of Victoria. Brody went into software engineering, but Callum decided on another path. He thought about nursing and wanted to do something where he knew he could see the impact he was making.

“Seeing people get better … it’s really nice,” he said.

Nursing is also an area with a lot of opportunities expected in the next decade. In the latest annual B.C. Labour Market Outlook, registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses are second when it comes to high-opportunity occupations.

While attending NIC, Callum also knew he could study in smaller classes and stay relatively close to home. After getting his Biology 12, he started at the college in 2022. Through the BSN program, he took part in peer-tutoring and also got a taste of where he might want to specialize, particularly cardiac monitoring.

“I just love telemetry. Cardiac stuff is my forte,” he said. “You get to see more complex cases.”

Emily is interested in psychiatric nursing and thought about going into it directly. Her family suggested she could specialize in it later, which would give her more career options, but she does expect to move into that branch of nursing for the long term. She has planned on entering the profession for a little while, in part due to her mother’s influence.

“She always talked about what a rewarding career it is,” Emily said. “During high school, I had it on my mind a lot.”

First, she has some work to do at NIC, and when she finishes the four-year program, she is planning to follow the new family tradition at the pinning ceremony by asking her brother to take part.

“I’m going to get Callum to pin me,” she said.

Family connections have long been a hallmark of the college’s BSN program, said RaeAnn Hartman, Associate Dean, Faculty of Health and Human Services.

“Across the years, siblings, spouses, parents and children, and the children of faculty members have followed in one another’s footsteps to become BSN graduates,” she said. “These stories underscore the importance of providing high-quality nursing education close to home, allowing local residents to pursue their studies in the Comox Valley and continue making meaningful contributions to the communities where they live and work.”