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Class of 2009: Dalnews profiles some of the 2,700 graduates who'll walk across the stage of the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium during Spring Convocation, May 19 to 27.

Melissa Devine is graduating with a Master of Nursing degree.

Are Canadian nurses ready to be deployed to combat zones? It鈥檚 a question Melissa Devine asked herself as a nursing officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. Ms. Devine, who completed a mission in Bosnia as a flight nurse, has been to many parts of the world.

With the increasing emphasis on international deployment over the past few years, the nursing graduate believes it鈥檚 important that nurses are ready for the challenges they鈥檒l face overseas. Her master鈥檚 thesis is a self-assessment tool of a military nurse鈥檚 individual readiness for deployment. 鈥淚 thought it would be good to give them a tool to measure whether they were truly prepared,鈥� she says.

Ms. Devine is now graduating with a Master of Nursing degree, a significant accomplishment that was not without its challenges. While at a critical point in her thesis work, her husband was deployed for six months in support of Canada鈥檚 mission in Afghanistan. For Ms. Devine, this meant balancing considerable schoolwork with the needs of her two small children, age nine and four, and trying to carve out a bit of time for herself.

鈥淚f you do just concentrate on school, it consumes you,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou have to have work-life balance.鈥�

After graduation, Ms. Devine returns to her position as a standards officer at CFB Borden and is hoping to be deployed again this summer to Landsthul Regional Medical Centre, the hospital in Germany where injured Canadian soldiers are taken when they leave Afghanistan. She will be receiving injured soldiers when they arrive, following their care and making all the arrangements for their aeromedical evacuation home.