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Cranbrook nurse presented with Lifetime award

Melodie Hull was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BC Coalition of Nursing Associations at a ceremony held in Vancouver on Friday, Nov. 17.
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Melodie Hull (centre) is presented with a Lifetime Achievement from the BC Coalition of Nursing Associations at a ceremony held in Vancouver on Friday, Nov. 17. At left is Judy Darcy, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. On the right is Jacqollyne Keath, PhD and President of the Association of Registered Psychiatric Nurses of British Columbia. Photo by Maxine Adshead

A Cranbrook nurse and nursing instructor has received a prestigious provincial award.

Melodie Hull was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BC Coalition of Nursing Associations at a ceremony held in Vancouver on Friday, Nov. 17. The Award of Excellence in Nursing for Lifetime Achievement is one of the highest award a nurse can achieve.

Each of the three nursing groups in the province — Registered Psychiatric Nurses (RPNs), Registered Nurses (RNs) and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) were in attendance and each gave a series of awards to its members (in several categories.

Hull is a Registered Psychiatric Nurse, and received her Lifetime Achievement Award from that group.

She was nominated by Maxine Adshead, who was Head Nurse at the Psychiatric Unit in Cranbrook when Hull was a staff member.

Friends and colleagues in Cranbrook who have followed her remarkable career in the profession over the years wrote letters of support.

“One of the things I really appreciated about Melodie was how innovative she was,” Adshead said. “She’s continued in that vein, and I’m sure even when she retires she won’t stop.”

Hull was nominated for many accomplishments, including:

• Being the first RPN in Canada to have written medical textbooks;

• Edited and reviewing a number of nursing and medical textbooks;

• Being published in peer reviewed journals over the course of her career;

• Building an international reputation as a psychiatric/mental health nurse and as a nurse-educator via conference presentation around the world, in her affiliation with the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook.

• Being the first nurse to have successfully published in Medical English/Nursing English and have built an international reputation for this and the topic of Medical Language.

Hull has been a Nurse Educator for all three types of nursing since 1991. She was presented an Award of Excellence for Nursing Education in 2008.

Hull has clinical nursing experience in acute psychiatry, acute forensic psychiatry, community mental health, correctional services, and has been a psychiatric nurse-therapist for Corrections Canada (federal penitentiary programs) and an Emergency Department Psychiatric Nurse Clinician.

Hull also has her own endowment fund in the field of mental health: the Melodie Hull Mental Health and Addictions Fund (through the Cranbrook and District Community Foundation).

Judy Darcy, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, served as Master of Ceremonies at the Vancouver event at the Sheraton Wall.

“We are so grateful for the work done by nurses across the health system, supporting patients at some of their most vulnerable and stressful times, and it is an honour to come together to celebrate their achievements,” Darcy said.



Barry Coulter

About the Author: Barry Coulter

Barry Coulter had been Editor of the Cranbrook Townsman since 1998, and has been part of all those dynamic changes the newspaper industry has gone through over the past 20 years.
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