doreeDoree, Joan Florence Alice (1919-2016)

See Oral History files, Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 8, AUOH25

In 1993 Joan established the Mabel and Henry Doree Family Memorial Bursary in honour of her parents.  She credits them with enabling her to become a nurse by giving her the financial support she needed to enter St. Paul’s Hospital School of Nursing in Saskatoon in 1937.  She later received her BA from UBC and a Masters in Public Health from the University of California in Berkeley.

After graduation she worked as a staff nurse in Prelate, Lethbridge, and VGH.  During the war she served with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps at the Basingstoke Neurological and Plastic Surgery Hospital in Hampshire, England.  After the war she worked in Vancouver at Shaughnessy Hospital, St. Paul’s, the Vancouver Health Department, and for the Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children.  Joan is a founding member of the Registered Nurses Foundation of British Columbia and served two terms as Director on the RNABC.  After her retirement she spent ten years as a volunteer tutor at the Carnegie Community Center.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Biographical Information Profile with signed release
  2. “Nurses’ War Experiences Vivid in Remembrance,” The Vancouver Sun, p. A17c.
  3. Biography from “1940’s Amazing Alumni Stories” on Internet
  4. “Joan Doree Establishes New Bursary for Aspiring Nurses”, RNFBC Newsletter, 2012-1013, Winter Edition.
  5. “Tuberculosis Care in the Community in the late 1940’s and Early 1950’s” by Joan  Doree, unpublished paper, October 1998.
  6. Photograph of Doree, taken 1944 or 1945.
  7. “Joan Doree: Nursing for Different Times”
  8. 2016 Nursing Award of Excellence
  9. Olive Caldwell Lee, “Second World War Nurse Shares Heartbreaking Memories from Overseas”. For CBC News November 11, 2016.
  10. Obituary