4 U.S. nurse practitioners move to N.S. following recruitment drive

Colleen Conway-Edwards says her place rural area of the U.S. No yearner reflects her family's values. 

That's wherefore she, her married woman and their six children left their home in Tennessee this summer to make the move to Bridgewater, where she's working as a nurse practitioner at the Lunenburg County Primary Care Clinic.

Conway-Edwards said the decision to move was political. 

"We were feeling unsafe in the States with the current administration," Conway-Edwards said. "So we looked at many different places and settled on Canada."

Conway-Edwards said there are many more like her. In fact, she shares space in the Bridgewater-based clinic with a former North Carolinian, Patrick Finn, who also decided the changing political tides in the U.S. Made Canada a more appealing home for him and his family of four.

"I would say that was a pretty significant factor," Finn said of the latest Trump administration.

"The policy changes in the U.S. Has not been what our personal priorities are as a family … we needed to find someplace that was more aligned to the things that we value as a family, which is education, health care and safety." 

Finn and Conway-Edwards are two of four recent arrivals from the U.S. Who've taken up nurse practitioner roles in Halifax, Bridgewater and Yarmouth. 

Conway-Edwards said she feels "very lucky" and says she has many friends and family back in the States "who wish they could be here too."  

Conway-Edwards describes her young family as "a very other" family.  

"I'm married to a woman. We have children with pretty profound special needs," she said. 

So when the discussion came up in her family about moving north, she said her wife was all for it. As a history teacher, Conway-Edwards said, her partner recognized the signs.

"She agreed that we really shouldn't be there just in case."

While the political climate provided the motivation to leave, the efforts from the province and Nova Scotia Health made it easy to do so.

The health authority made its move immediately after the 2024 presidential election.

"We launched a very large-scale marketing campaign," said Laura O'Brien, director of recruitment and volunteer services for Nova Scotia Health. 

"This was strategic in the fact that we know that there are people that do not feel safe, that want to get out of there and we … want to welcome them here to Nova Scotia Health."

O'Brien said that effort led to the successful recruitment of four American nurse practitioners — Conway-Edwards and Finn among them. Five more are in the midst of the hiring process.

More specifically, Conway-Edwards said that the province had an "immigration team" that she found incredibly helpful and "a big draw."

"That was not available in other provinces to help me through the process of getting a work permit and doing things correctly. I've never had to do that before. So that was a really important piece of it," she said. 

Conway-Edwards said she took the initiative on her own to explore opportunities in Canada. At first she considered British Columbia before settling on Nova Scotia where the cost of living is lower.

Today Conway-Edwards works as a geriatric nurse practitioner and uses the clinic in Bridgewater mainly as a home base. Her work involves caring for patients inside five long-term care homes in the Lunenburg County region.

Finn works full time in the clinic as a primary care provider. He says there's a sense of community on the South Shore he doesn't think he'd find anywhere else in the country. And he's allowed to work there with independence and autonomy. In North Carolina, Finn worked under the supervision of a physician who would advise him on treatment plans.

"I was unable to operate within my full potential, my full abilities," Finn said. "I would say Nova Scotia has more room for nurse practitioners to practise fully within their capabilities, which is very, very good for me." 

Finn says he feels like he's entering the Nova Scotia health-care system at the right time.

"There's this period of transition that's occurring right now where we are looking at getting more providers in the area. We are trying to address the needs of the community, and I'm looking forward to being a part of that." 

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