"Take advantage of what life has to offer."
"Live life to the fullest."
These phrases in part illustrate the life view of Pierre LaPlante, a registered nurse who did not start out to be one. Born in a Catholic, military family in , but raised throughout the US and around the world, LaPlante's first degree was in theology, and he began his working life as a teacher of religious education. While teaching, LaPlante developed an interest in healthcare. In 1971, looking for a place where he could get training and real-life, hands-on experience in healthcare, he enlisted in the US Navy as a hospital corpsman. After a short stint off the coast of Vietnam, in 1973, LaPlante returned to the United States.
After working for 15 years as a Licensed Vocational Nurse in , he graduated in 1989 from the State University of New York and became a registered nurse. LaPlante credits nursing with giving him a means to access the world and taking him on his greatest journeys. "If you had asked me when I was young," says 55-year-old LaPlante, "I would never have believed I would have been a male nurse, but it has dominated my life."
Hitting the Road (Again)
In 1990, LaPlante, a newly minted RN, took his nursing north of the border into Canada (he holds dual US/Canadian citizenship). While working as a float nurse at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital, LaPlante read an article about Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which at the time was seeking volunteers. He had never heard of MSF before, but the work sounded valuable and interesting, so he sent them his résumé and asked to be put on file.
A year and a half later, at 6:30am on a Tuesday, LaPlante (who was employed full-time and about to begin his second day of graduate school at the University of British Columbia) was called by the Amsterdam branch of MSF. They asked if he wanted to go on a 4.5-month contract as a medical advisor in Rwanda. He is frank in relating his initial dazed response to the call: "F*** no, it's 6:30 in the morning."
Nonetheless, later that day, after polling his classmates to see what they thought he should do, he found himself asking for a leave of absence from work, subletting his apartment, and informing his parents of his decision. Two days after the initial call from MSF, LaPlante was on the flight to Amsterdam for