This bursary was established in 2005 in memorium for Monica Frith Green (1917 – 2004) who devoted her career to the advancement of public health nursing in British Columbia. Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, in 1917, she moved to B.C. as a child. She graduated from the six-year, double-degree nursing program at the University of British Columbia, with her RN from Vancouver General Hospital, and her Bachelor of Arts (1939) and Bachelor of Applied Science in Nursing (1940). Soon after graduation, she joined the Provincial Public Health Nursing Service, working in the Okanagan and in Creston. After a leave to obtain a Master’s degree in Public Health Nursing from the University of Michigan, she returned to the B.C. PHN Service as a Consultant.
In 1948, she was promoted to Director. Under her gifted administrative skills, the nursing service expanded and she introduced, among other advances, a post-hospitalization home-care program, one of the first in Canada. Throughout her career, Mrs. Green was active in professional associations and was, among other positions, president of the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA). In 1967, she was honoured by her U.S. colleagues and became Honourary President of the American Public Health Association and in 1968 was made an APHA Fellow. I n 1975, she received the Award of Merit from the B.C. Branch of the CPHA for outstanding contributions to public health services and public health nursing. Following retirement, she wrote the thoroughly-researched and well-illustrated ‘Through the Years with Public Health Nursing: A History of Public Health Nursing in the Provincial Government Jurisdiction British Columbia’ (Ottawa: CPHA, 1984), now a classic reference book. In recognition of her writings, she was named an Honourary Life Member of the History of Nursing Professional Practice Group of the College of Registered Nurses of B.C. She died on December 28, 2004.