Called to Serve details Pope's path to power through the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th. It addresses the significance of her privileged and powerful lineage, the influence of her parents on her world view, and the inspiration of Florence Nightingale who invoked in Pope a "burning desire" to become an "army nurse" in a faraway land. 

The story takes us from Georgie's sheltered life in Victorian Prince Edward Island to the "Boston States"; to the dangerous and primitive conditions she experienced as a Superintendent of nurses in two South African Wars; to her work in the formation of the nursing component of the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC); and to the battlefields of Europe during the First World War where she developed shell shock from the bombing and was invalided home; her career over.