Isabel McVicar

McVicar (later Morgan), Isabel G. (1896-

Isabel graduated from VGH in 1919 and registered as a nurse in BC in 1920.  She spent two years specializing in surgical nursing at the Sacramento Hospital in California before joining the staff of the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, performing major surgery on patients from Tranquille.  She joined the staff at the Rotary Clinic in Vancouver and became nurse in charge on the Chest Clinic at VGH; in 1939 she received a Certificate in Public Health Nursing from UBC.

In 1938 Miss McVicar was hired to carry out a year of experimental testing in the Lower Fraser Valley for the BC Tuberculosis Society.   Her work included overseeing the tuberculin testing on eight thousand children in the Lower Fraser Valley.  In 1939-40 she expanded this work to West Vancouver and Powell River as well as New Westminster and the Lower Mainland.

Contents of Biographical File

  • “Big Adventure:  This Nurse’s Job”, Your Health (1995), 20 (8), 8, 24.
  • “Isabel G. McVicar” from Glennis Zilm and Ethel Warbinek, “TB Nurses in BC 1895-1960:  A Biographical Dictionary”: White Rock, 2006