You could be a teacher, nurse or secretary. Those were the choices for the women of her generation, says Vicki Gold, BN’68, who did not choose nursing so much as Nursing at McGill, which enabled her to embrace her passion for research and discovery, laying the foundation for a long and fulfilling career.
In the mid ‘60s, Gold transferred to McGill from a Harvard teaching hospital. She wanted to study at a place where nursing was viewed as an intellectual and academic pursuit, rather than simply as a bedside practice. McGill was also attractive in that it offered an undergraduate Nursing degree, something, Gold says, Harvard would not adopt until years later. She remembers her McGill professors as some of the best and brightest, from cardiac surgeon Arthur Vineberg, BSc(Arts)’24, MDCM’28, MSc’28, PhD’33, whose experiments in the 1940s laid the groundwork for the modern bypass, to neuropsychologist Dr. Donald Hebb, MA’32, DSc’75, one of the first researchers to explain the brain’s neural networks.
Her academically minded parents, originally skeptical of her career choice, were won over by her excitement, as they watched their daughter’s world opening up. “It confirmed to them that I was absolutely in the right place.”
Gold’s career would take her to Los Angeles, St. Louis, Boston and New Haven, and into postoperative care, cardiovascular recovery, intensive care and emergency. She also spent years in otolaryngology and pain management, and worked as a women’s health advocate and nurse educator. Most recently, she helped found a free hospice for those with no caregivers in the New York State capital region, where she resides.
After a long and fulfilling career, Gold is now setting the stage for young students to be inspired the way she was 50 years ago. A regular donor to McGill, she is still fascinated by the research it produces and has made plans for a bequest to support the Ingram School of Nursing. “I want other people to have the experience that I had.”
Education was important to her parents, it’s been important to her, and now she wants to pass that on to the next generation. “Having these kinds of experiences is just an incredible gift.”
As she looks back, she is grateful for all that she received at McGill. “Education is the foundation for someone’s future,” she says.
For more information on planned giving and/or any type of donation to the Ingram School of Nursing, please contact:
Jessie Lawrence
Development Officer
jessie.lawrence [at] mcgill.ca
514.398.2196