Nineteen-year-old Donna Yates is ripe with idealism and dreams when she enters a grueling three-year training program under the supervision of the indomitable Sister Leclerc at Holy Cross Hospital, School of Nursing.

But her dreams are soon challenged as she comes up against the shocking realities of resident and hospital life. When physical and emotional strain of her first encounters with illness and death threaten to overwhelm her, Yates discovers undreamed of reserves of strength.

Her newly emerging strength gets an added workout when rioting mental patients threaten to turn a picnic into an orgy, and she discovers a fine line separates sanity from madness and comedy from tragedy.

Under strict rules and exacting standards of the French-speaking Grey Nuns, Yates learns the true meaning of "vocation." Holy Cross did more than turn out good nurses...it changed the lives of the women who trained there.

Yes, Sister, is an intensely personal memoir with the pace and texture of a novel. Set against the sprawling beauty of western Canada, this coming of age story has a distinct subtext that cuts across gender, religion and politics.


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