A Nanaimo emergency room doctor will receive recognition from the very university that planted the seeds of her medical career.
Skye Creba, a doctor at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, is slated to receive the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Early Achievement Award at a Vancouver Island University graduation ceremony on Wednesday (June 3).
Creba saw two peer-reviewed papers published and earned the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council’s undergraduate student research award, as well as the council’s prominent post-graduate scholarship during her time at VIU. She graduated in 2006, majoring in biology and chemistry.
Creba said she was nominated for her current award by colleagues and teachers, unbeknownst to her. The university was an amazing starting point for her career, she said.
“VIU is a foundation for a lot of where I am today, I would say. It’s a university that fosters that drive to ask questions and then go and find the answers to them and that I use every day in my career now and at home now and they really allow you to take risks and ask the questions and chase your dreams.
“I use that in every aspect of my life, the things I learned at VIU,” said Creba.
In addition to studying and researching, Creba played soccer for the VIU Mariners varsity soccer team. Out of that came more life skills.
“It was a busy time doing a heavy course load and soccer at that time and it definitely made me use my organizational skills. I still use that learning process now,” said Creba, with a laugh.
“It was a lot of juggling. A lot of getting to be efficient, making sure you can do multiple things at the same time because I wanted to be good at all of them,” she said.
According to the university, the early achievement award goes to people who have demonstrated outstanding achievement within 10 years of graduating, in areas such as career, community service, business, research, athletics or arts.
Artist Arthur Vickers was also honoured at Monday’s convocation ceremony with an honorary doctorate of letters from VIU. For more on Vickers and the gift he donated to VIU, please click here.