Building a career of care where it’s needed most

Photo Supplied: Janessa Boisvert

As a teen in her hometown of Grande Prairie, Janessa Boisvert, ’24 BScRT, watched the city’s new regional hospital go up, brick by brick, and its cancer centre opened just a few months after she started her degree in radiation therapy at the University of Alberta. By the end of her first year, she knew she wanted to return home to begin her career there once she had graduated. Today, back in Grande Prairie and only two years after her convocation, Boisvert has already been a part of some milestone moments in a career that promises to bring her different challenges and joys every day.

Growing up, Boisvert loved science and math, but it wasn’t until she happened upon a flyer advertising radiation therapy as a career that she knew what she wanted to do with that passion. “I immediately knew that was what I wanted to do,” she recalls. “It seemed like the perfect balance of science and technology with patient care.”

Once she had begun her degree, she was quickly immersed in opportunities to observe real patient care. “A large portion of the U of A training is practicum,” she says, “and I think that’s the best way to learn this career.” It was during those practicum experiences that Boisvert’s true calling to accompany patients through treatment was cemented.

Upon graduation, Boisvert moved home and began working at the Grande Prairie Cancer Centre. As one of only two radiation therapists on staff, she was even more involved in daily patient care than she had imagined during school.

“Working in a smaller centre, I often see the same patients every day for a month, so I build real connections with them and I get to be a bigger part of their journey than I ever expected,” she says. “I think that continuity of care is deeply meaningful for the patient, but also very rewarding for the therapist. Seeing them ring the bell at the end of their treatment is very emotional.”

Boisvert is deeply invested in the care of her patients, and that work was recognized last year with a Professional Excellence in Patient Care Award from the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists. “It was so gratifying to feel that I’m doing the right thing in the right way,” she says, “and it helps motivate me to continue to work hard.”

Also a motivating force for Boisvert is the fact that, as of this spring, her workplace is a new practicum site for students in the U of A’s Radiation Therapy program. For five weeks, she recently mentored the first of the program’s students to opt for this placing, in a practicum that provides them with their first real exposure to patient-care experiences. 

“I was very excited to be able to share how I feel about the job and show what it’s really like,” she says. She also enjoyed sharing her enthusiasm for working and living in a smaller centre. “I wanted them to know it’s not just the connections you build with the patients, but also with your co-workers — and you even get to know the community so well.”

One of the two students in this first practicum cohort has already shown a strong interest in returning permanently after her degree, Boisvert says happily, and she looks forward to welcoming more in the coming months. 

“The more such regional training opportunities are offered, the more we will encourage future radiation therapists to build their careers here in the north.”