Centenary Medal – Tricia Newport

Tricia Newport applied to the UBC School of Nursing with the dream of eventually working for Doctor’s Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). After graduating from UBC with a BSN in 2006, Tricia returned home to the Yukon Territory to work as a nurse. Tricia worked in several different locations in the Yukon until 2009 when she began working with Doctor’s Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

Since 2009, Tricia has worked with MSF in countries across Africa and the Middle East. She originally started with MSF as a nurse, working in various projects that focused on malnutrition, epidemic response and responding to displaced populations. After a few years of working as a nurse, Tricia began managing MSF projects, and eventually coordinating MSF missions at the country level.

Since the start of the ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in August 2018, Tricia has spent most of her time in the DRC managing MSF’s response to the outbreak.

While working with MSF can be intense, exhausting and stressful, the work is exactly what Tricia dreamed of when she applied to nursing school. She has had the incredible opportunity to meet and work with amazing and inspiring people around the world and has learned to be extremely grateful for her life, for all of the people in it, and for all of the opportunities she has been provided.