We Are IH: Broken bones don’t keep booking clerk from her passion

February 16, 2023

Yvette with her horse Orion’s Regal Star competing in the 2021 Kelowna Derby.

Name: Yvette Shukin (she/her/hers)
Job Title: Surgical booking clerk
Years of Service: 25
Worksite: Kootenay Lake Hospital
Community: Nelson
Ancestral Territory: Ktunaxa
Favourite Quote / Advice to live by: “Reset, restart, refocus as many times as you need to. Just don't quit.” - Unknown

Born and raised in Nelson, Yvette Shukin began her career at Interior Health in 1997 in health information management systems as a medical transcriptionist and health information processing clerk. Three years ago, she moved to surgical services at Kootenay Lake Hospital, and celebrated 25 years with Interior Health in July 2022.

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Learn more about her journey with IH

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Learn more about her journey with IH

Hard working, determined and goal oriented, Yvette describes herself as a people pleaser.

I absolutely love the operating room team that I work with each and every day. They make the challenges of the job reachable and attainable, and are always supportive and inclusive.

-- Yvette Shukin

A woman riding a brown horse jumping over a white gate in an equestrian ring. — Yvette with her horse Orion’s Regal Star competing in the 2021 Kelowna Derby.

Outside of work, Yvette’s passion is equestrian riding and competing. She frequently travels around the province to clinics and competitions where she rides her daughter’s 21-year-old Connemara/Arab cross gelding named Orion’s Regal Star. “I have an amazing team of riders and coaches. I love every minute of it,” says Yvette.

As Yvette describes herself, she’s dogged and determined – which might be an understatement. In 2020, she broke her pelvis when she fell off her horse. She jokes, “I have a pretty high pain tolerance. It also made COVID isolation easy.”

A woman in a purple shirt and black vest riding a brown horse jumping over a wooden barrel. — Yvette competing with Orion’s Regal Star at the Island 22 Horse Trials in Chilliwack BC provincial championship in 2021.

True to her motto of “Don’t put old fear into a new day,” she returned to competition in 2021 only to break her left radius/ulna and right clavicle in 2022. With one more surgery to go, Yvette looks forward to riding and competing, and being able to do the things that she loves.

Yvette is the proud mom of two children: her 24-year-old daughter, an x-ray technician on the coast, and her 20-year-old son, who works at a bank in Nelson. During the pandemic, her kids brought home a rescue dog, a Rottweiler named Bella, now six years old. “My loving husband puts up with all the chaos,” she quips.

Yvette nominates Angie Bailey, booking clerk, to keep We Are IH going:

“Angie trained me back in 1997 and again for a new position in 2020! Amazing person and friend.” - Yvette Shukin

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