ISLESBORO — Ellen Mcdonald has been recently hired as the Islesboro Central School school nurse.

Mcdonald graduated Dean's List with a degree in Nursing Sciences and took the Florence Nightingale Pledge at Southern Maine Community College, where she was also bestowed by her classmates the superlative "most likely to lead a women's rights march." Since then she has been working as a registered nurse on Peaks Island and Portland, where she has made her home for the past decade. In Portland she has been a preceptor to several nursing students from her alma mater.

According to ICS, Mcdonald enjoys teaching and asking "why is that?" repeatedly.

In addition to working in Maine, she has also had the privilege of working in Zanzibar at a village health clinic where her focuses were pediatric health and wellness and reproductive health education. She is proud that she has traveled several times to the area and has continuing friendships with local doctors, nurses and midwives, according to ICS.

In addition to working towards her goal of being a "empowering healthcare provider," Mcdonald spends her time practicing the art of Pysanka – a Ukranian egg dying technique, and remodeling the inside of a 1979 Ford van with which she hopes to begin travel nursing once life has settled down. Currently she is preparing for the journey towards a master’s degree this January to earn her Family Nurse Practitioner license.

“She feels incredibly welcomed and extremely excited to be joining the ICS community and looks forward to returning to Belfast, where she grew up,” said ICS.