The role of nurses within health care systems across Canada continues to change and the education programs responsible for training the next generation nurses, such as the School of Nursing at Queen’s University, must keep up with this transformation.

Nursing Week this year is marked May 11-15 and as Jennifer Medves, Director of the School of Nursing and Vice-Dean Faculty of Health Sciences, points out, it is an opportunity for those in the profession to receive a bit of recognition for all their efforts.

“Nursing Week is about, we hope, people stopping and recognizing the contribution of nursing to the health care systems,” she says, explaining that there is not just one health care system but many at the provincial, territorial and federal levels. “What nurses have in their scope of practice varies from one province to territory and the scope of practices for nurses is increasing.”

One new development announced earlier this week by the Government of Ontario is that nurse practitioners will be able to refer patients directly to a specialist, when before they had to first refer to a family physician. The result is a more efficient system of referrals.

 “That really was an added step that costs the system money and really is not required,” Dr. Medves says. “That was a very nice announcement that came out (Monday).”

While many people still tend to think the main role of nurses is working at the bedside in acute care hospitals, Dr. Medves says that there is an increasing percentage of nurses working in the community care sector, where patients are cared for in their own homes. As a result, the School of Nursing needs to provide education to meet these future needs.

“Looking into the future we need to be thinking about what those roles could look like and we, in an education program, are always looking to make sure that the practice for our education program is congruent with where the nurses will be working in the future,” she says.

Yet change is not a reason for concern. Instead, Dr. Medves sees it as a time of growth and the School of Nursing is in the midst of setting out its future course for the next five years.

“It’s exciting times because we are thinking about where we want to go in the future,” she says. “We’re in the middle of developing a strategic plan to last us until 2020, which obviously lines up with the strategic plan of the university and aligns with the Faculty of Health Sciences.”

In the shorter term, the School of Nursing is celebrating its 75^th anniversary in 2016. Dr. Medves says there are four special events planned throughout the academic year, including a pair of conferences.

This summer the school will also be celebrating two new graduate scholarships, funded by alumni of the School of Nursing, while the first Sally Smith Chair in Nursing, named in honour of Edith “Sally” (Carruthers) Smith, the wife of local philanthropist A. Britt Smith, who died in June 2012, will be named in the coming weeks.

The warm weather is finally here and that means it is once again time to take the sports outdoors.

The Queen’s Intramurals are back for another year and Athletics and Recreation is looking to build upon a very successful 2014 season that saw 60 teams take the field in soccer, softball and ultimate.

The intramurals are open to students, staff and faculty as well as community members such as spouses and partners.

The leagues are about getting out and being active while also having some fun.

“They are recreational in nature,” says Duane Parliament, Intramurals and Special Projects coordinator for Queen’s Athletics and Recreation. “We do have people who have never played the sport and we have people who have played at a high level, but it’s meant to be a summer go out once a week and do something with your friends-type activity.”

The Summer Intramural Pass remains $40, but graduate students with a 2014-15 SGPS sticker on their student card are exempt from paying the fee.

The leagues also help foster a feeling of community with a mix of players – students, faculty and staff – on the teams.

“When you’re out there you are not a teacher soccer player or a student soccer player. You’re a soccer player,” Mr. Parliament says.

Last year saw an increase of 142 sign-ups, bringing total participation to 1,165 over the three sports. Mr. Parliament is hoping to see the trend continue.

Soccer is divided into men’s (12 teams) and women’s (four teams) while softball (32 teams) and ultimate (16 teams) are co-ed. Ultimate is the only league, however, that is divided by skill level.

Registration started May 1 at gogaelsgo.com. For those without a team there is a “free agent list” where Mr. Parliament will try to place them on a team in need of players.

The Queen’s Intramural leagues can also help you "Get Your 150.” Getting your recommended 150 minutes of weekly physical activity can be fun, social and enjoyable with Queen’s intramurals. Visit gogaelsgo.com/150 for other great Get Your 150 tips.

In the early hours of Sunday, April 25, Prabeen Joshi answered the call that so many Nepalese living abroad received.

At 3:40 a.m. his sister, who lives in Australia, called to inform him that a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake had struck Nepal. The good news was that his parents, who still live in Nepal, were safe and unharmed.

At the time, little information was known but it didn’t take long for the Nepalese community in Kingston – approximately 50 people with about 15 attending Queen’s as students or as post-doctoral fellows – to be alerted to the situation.

“I tried to contact my parent myself but I couldn’t. They were away from home at one of my cousins’ engagement party,” he says. “The party was over and then the earthquake happened. But they were together. That was a big relief that such a big devastation happened and still my parents were fine.”

Unable to go back to sleep, Mr. Joshi, a PhD student in civil engineering, spent the rest of the night finding out what he could about his homeland. It left him reeling. The death toll has already surpassed 7,000 and is expected to top 10,000.

Overall, Mr. Joshi has only heard of one local member who has suffered a loss. However, the disaster has taken a heavy toll as the community can only look on from halfway around the world.

Looking to do anything to help, the community decided to launch a campaign to raise funds and awareness of the disaster. They held a vigil in downtown Kingston where they raised $960 in donations.

The have also set up a crowd-funding site to raise more funds.

“That is the best thing we could do as there’s no option for going back and helping immediately,” he explains. “So the best thing to do was to come together as a community and start collecting whatever we can.”

The campaign wraps up Saturday but donations can still be made at their webpage.

The window for opportunity is small. Already, he points out, Nepal has dropped off the front pages but the massive relief effort continues and the rebuilding of the country will take years.

Still, he has hope that the country and its people will recover. For example, the disaster has pulled the Nepalese diaspora together to help the recovery effort.

“When you are unified only good things happen,” Mr. Joshi says.