The Queen’s Nursing Science Society (NSS) is debating the usefulness of their membership with the Canadian Nursing Student Association (CNSA) at the Presidential Caucus meeting.
At the closed-door meeting with AMS Commissioners, the NSS, which provides support to and hosts events for nursing students at Queen’s, expressed its discontent with the unaffordability of the membership on July 31.
NSS remains a member of the CNSA, and society members are still deciding if they would like to terminate the membership.
“We are still with the CNSA,” Anita Thevarajah, President of the NSS, said in an email to The Journal. “We have not yet come to a decision and are currently assessing the benefits of membership.”
The CNSA advocates for nursing students across Canada, and membership with the association comes with access to professional workshops and conferences, advocacy opportunities, and a preparatory course for the nursing licensure examination which students take in the final year of their degree.
To fund the approximately $2,000 membership, the NSS requires Queen’s nursing students pay an annual mandatory fee of $4.67 per student.
“The NSS-CNSA Official Delegate and my fellow executive team members have found the advertised workshops are accompanied by less-than-ideal prices (which reduce their overall appeal),” Thevarajah said in her report to caucus. “The conferences remain financially inaccessible to students, and the UWorld membership discount is not as profound as we had hoped.”
Chloe Wong, HealthSci ’26, formally worked for the NSS as the CNSA delegate, whose task is to collect nursing student feedback on their nursing education and relay the information to the CNS. Wong believes the membership provides Queen’s nursing students with a strong platform for advocacy work.
Wong admitted the opportunities provided by the CNSA membership are limited, and the NSS is unaware of how many nursing students are engaging with CNSA’s services.
“The CNSA provides exclusive scholarships and membership benefits like a UWorld discount, but the number of students engaging with the service is unknown,” Wong said in a statement to The Journal.
Since the cost of the membership outweighs the benefits, the NSS is now placing a greater focus on planning internal workshops and events, according to Thevarajah.
“We would like to optimize our website over the upcoming weeks in order to create a user-friendly hub for webinars, events, and professional opportunities that we come across,” Thevarajah said.
The Journal reached out to the Thevarajah to verify if any further conversations have been had about the membership since July, but no response was received.
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