Becoming a Registered Nurse

The Future Face of Nursing Profiles

Karen Pielak, RN, MSN

“My favourite part of nursing is the interaction with people from all walks of life. I know the impact nursing can have on people’s health.”

Role models can enter your life at any time and from anywhere. Some may be well known and recognized in society, while others can be ordinary, everyday people. Growing up in an isolated logging camp on the coast of B.C., Karen Pielak and her four siblings relied on public health nurses for routine check-ups and immunization; Karen’s mother found the advice of the nurses invaluable. Those public health nurses were the inspiration for Pielak’s career choice.

Pielak has worked in many different fields of nursing, but her passion is epidemiology. She is the provincial nurse epidemiologist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control as well as an adjunct professor at the UBC School of Nursing. These roles complement each other as she is able to illustrate her lectures with real-life examples of the principles of epidemiology.

“I love determining answers to situations that don’t fit the usual or expected.” Pielak describes the best part of her work day as the consultation she provides to public health nurses and medical health officers across the province. She also enjoys the challenges of developing best practice guidelines for immunization and the control of communicable diseases. “I search for the most comprehensive and current information available. I see my nursing role as supporting and expediting the work of others in these communicable disease control activities.”

When asked about the challenges facing public health, Pielak offered: “We’ve been so successful in reducing vaccine-preventable diseases that there is a growing complacency about immunization…People in our communities should take notice of Immunization Awareness Month and realize that vaccines are safe and effective. Simply put, vaccines prevent disease. If the Canadian public does not maintain high immunization levels, vaccine-preventable diseases will increase, and needless suffering will result.”

After graduation, Pielak worked for one year in the antenatal unit of Vancouver General Hospital, caring for women with high-risk pregnancy conditions. Later, as a district public health nurse in Port Moody, B.C., she worked in immunization clinics, conducted new baby visits and home visits, taught prenatal classes and provided education in schools and health screening. “I thoroughly enjoyed the autonomy and diversity of the work.”

Pielak worked for 11 years in an administrative role. Her clients then became the public health nurses she supervised. “The best part of the work was fostering the growth of nurses as public health practitioners.”

She recently led a study team that developed a survey being used in several provinces to assess immunization provider knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that may hinder or promote immunization uptake. The survey results will inform education strategies and behaviour change interventions.

“My favourite part of nursing is the interaction with people. Dealing with all sorts of people from all walks of life, I know the impact nursing can have on people’s health.”