In 1998, more than 20 years ago, Dr Franco Carnevale, Dr Mary Decell and Dr Ronald Gottesman trained 3 students to become Pediatric critical care nurse practitioners at McGill Ingram School of nursing. Unfortunately, the legislation did not change at the time to allow these 3 graduates to work as nurse practitioners. Over the years, these trained ‘nurse practitioners’ (who called themselves ‘advanced practice nurses’) worked in the pediatric intensive care unit at the Montreal Children’s hospital under the supervision of pediatric intensivist who co-signed all their orders. Two of these nurses eventually drifted from the role. Linda Massé, one of these graduates, wanted the vision of pediatric nurse practitioners to become a reality. Linda worked on a Pediatric nurse practitioner curriculum and proposed it to Professor Norma Ponzoni (then Program Director of the Nurse Practitioner Program). Ms. Pnzoni brought this curriculum to the Faculty at ISoN and to the OIIQ. The program was accepted by both instances and the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner role was finally legalized on March 8, 2018! Linda and Tanya modified the initial curriculum to build the current Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Concentration that was successfully accredited by the OIIQ in January 2020.
While managing the Concentration as Nurse director, Linda decided to ask the OIIQ for recognition of her training at McGill. After reviewing her extensive dossier, Linda’s training at the ISoN was finally recognized by the OIIQ on April 9th 2019. On August 9th, 2019, she became the first Pediatric Nurse Practitioner candidate trained in Québec. After 18-years of practice and successfully writing her licensing exam, in January 2020, Linda became the first pediatric nurse practitioner trained at ISoN and in Québec. The pediatric nurse practitioner specialization is now a reality in Québec because the ISoN faculty believed in this advanced nursing role and the value of expanded nursing care for pediatric patients in our health care system.