Description
Ms. Streppa discusses her two postings in Canada. In St. Jean, Quebec, she was in charge of immunizing all of Canada’s military recruits and in Ottawa she upgraded her skills in a civilian hospital.
Joanna Streppa
Ms. Streppa was born in Montreal. She joined the Canadian Forces in 1989 as a non-commissioned member and trained as a Naval Signaller. From 1990 - 1997 she was employed in the Halifax area with the exception of a two year tour at the National Defense Headquarters in Ottawa. After obtaining her Nursing degree from Dalhousie University, Ms. Streppa received her Officer Commission, specializing in Critical Care, and in 2004 was promoted to rank of Lieutenant. In February 2006, she accepted a deployment to Afghanistan/Kandahar and was employed as a Staff Officer within the Canadian Forces Health Services Group Headquarters upon her return.
Transcript
I’ve been posted to two different postings since I’ve been a nurse. One was St. Jean, Quebec where I was the immunization nurse and nurse coordinator, so I was basically the, I managed 26 people and gave all the immunizations for all the recruits across Canada. And then I was posted to Ottawa where, because I did my critical care course on my own time, so I was posted to Ottawa so I can go and get the skills. We actually have to go into civilian hospitals to get our skills. We don’t have military hospitals anymore. Life as a military nurse is, you’re never bored. You’re always constantly changing employments. You can be working in a hospital one minute, doing projects the next minute, being in management the next minute, administrator the next minute. You’re continually changing responsibilities and you do so at a very early start in your career. And our major reason why we are in the military now is to prepare for deployments.