The Boreal Healthcare Foundation’s annual Med Gala was a special night for more than one individual on Friday.
The gala, formerly known as the Doctor’s Gala, expanded to celebrate nurses and collaborative healthcare teams in Prince Albert and wider Saskatchewan.
This year the Nursing Excellence Award was given to Jaclyn McDonald a maternal health professional with a passion for helping families as a Lactation Consultant.
“It means a lot,” McDonald said. “I’m very humbled because I’ve only been nursing for 14 years. You see Dr (Edmond)Royeppen (who received the Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare Award), he’s been a physician for 30 years, so I don’t think I deserve this award at all. But it was very humbling. I really am very passionate about family-centred care and serving my patients and making sure they meet their goals.”
Born and raised in Prince Albert, McDonald is a dedicated maternal health nurse and lactation consultant whose personal experiences, including having two children who required NICU care, have deepened her advocacy for maternal mental health and family-centred care. Her work is grounded in empathy and lived experience, supporting families through some of their most vulnerable and transformative moments with compassion and understanding.
Her own experience led to her passion for breastfeeding and the care of the whole family.
“I worked on labor and delivery and became passionate about breastfeeding, but not until I had my first baby. Then I struggled with my mental health. I had lots of anxiety, postpartum anxiety,” McDonald said.
McDonald said she became a better nurse because of that experience she became a better nurse because she understands what people go through.
“I never thought I’d be that anxious mom and I turned out to be that anxious mom,” she said. “Then I became really passionate about breastfeeding because that’s the one thing I wanted to do. I struggled throughout my all three of the kids getting there and I then wanted to make a career out of it. I became passionate about it. It was a goal of mine to become a lactation consultant.
“The bedside nurses really helped me, but there wasn’t a lactation consultant at the time there. Then I (thought), ‘okay, I feel like I could maybe help a little bit with people.’”
McDonald said not everyone understands exactly what a Lactation Consultant is. She said it is more than helping breastfeeding.
“It’s actually 95 per cent education about how can we can establish breastfeeding, but how can we bond with your baby, how can your whole family bond on to your baby,” McDonald said.
She explained that being a Lactation Consultant is about the whole experience of motherhood. She said her experience having two of her own children in the NICU helped her in this role.
She said that she is passionate about the job and really enjoys what she does.
“I love my job,” she said. “I love it, and I love serving the families in the NICU.”
Boreal Healthcare Foundation executive director Cody Barnett and Solina Richter of the College of Nursing at the University of Saskatchewan presented McDonald with her award.
McDonald has only been a nurse for 14 years so to be recognized for her work was a special experience.
“It is a short time,” she said. “I was very shocked, very shocked, and so, I’m very humbled by it.”
Because McDonald is a shy person, she created a video instead of a speech to thank the Foundation for the award. The video tribute to McDonald showed how much of an impression she made on people.
McDonald thanked the Foundation for the honour.
“I just feel privileged to continue serving,” she said. “This is just a reminder that I can always do better and to serve our patients and our families and the babies. That’s the only reason why we are here—just to serve the families and the patients.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
