Join us
Join us for a variety of events to laugh, learn and honour you and the work of your colleagues to mark #NursingWeek2025 (May 12-18, 2025).
Nursing Week 2025 will be held May 12-18 this year.
It is the annual celebration of our profession that always coincides with the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, on May 12.
This year's theme is Celebrating nursing action & impact. RNAO is proud to recognize all nurses for the quality of care they provide to patients, clients and long-term care residents. From the bedside to the classroom and the boardroom, nurses make Ontario, our country and the world a healthier place.
Celebrating nursing action & impact
Nurses have countless reasons to be proud. As we mark Nursing Week and celebrate the collective strength of registered nurses (RN), nurse practitioners (NP) and nursing students across Ontario, we recognize the action and impact we have made – individually and collectively – on the frontlines, in the classroom and in the boardroom. Thanks to all nurses for the milestones, moments and memories you’ve created through your hard work. They help bolster the sense of pride we all feel in our profession.
RNAO is marking its 100th anniversary this year. Our success – and the longevity of our collective work – is thanks to nurses’ active participation in and attention to the key issues that shape our profession, the health system and society.
NP Lhamo Dolkar,
RN(EC), MN, CCN
RNAO President
Dr. Doris Grinspun,
RN, BScN, MSN, PhD,
LLD(hon), Dr(hc), DHC, DHC,
FAAN, FCAN, O.ONT
RNAO CEO
Whether you’ve added your voice to the many calls for scope expansion, collaborated with colleagues to raise awareness of critical health, social and environmental issues, or invited a politician to your workplace or community to witness nursing in action, you play a central role in ensuring our universal, not-for-profit health system is there when people need care.
As we come together for Nursing Week 2025, we invite you to stand proud with colleagues. It is thanks to you that we have seen so much change for nurses over the last century and can look forward to another 100 years of success.
Hiring of new graduate nurses into critical care units without prior acute care experience increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The stigma surrounding substance use in pregnancy can have significant consequences for a family, which can be exacerbated by policies and procedures within the health-care system related to the treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome.
The nursing landscape is changing post-pandemic: Fewer experienced nurses for precepting, new grads with reduced clinical hours and more virtual practice, and increasing number of new educators and leaders.
Headache and alcohol withdrawal are common emergency department (ED) complaints. On average, nearly 84,000 patients present to EDs across Canada with headache complaints.
Vaso-occlusive episodes (VOE) are the most common reason for emergency department (ED) visits by patients with sickle cell disease. Despite guidelines recommending opioid administration within 30 minutes of triage, Toronto General Hospital ED's median time to opioids in 2023 was 101 minutes, with only 8.8 per cent of VOE patients receiving timely care.
Numerous barriers to health care exist in today's system, one of them being linguistic incongruence. Our expression through language is paramount to the understanding and representation of one's needs, identity, and personhood, however, not everyone receives the resources and aids necessary to do so.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a multi-systemic disorder that results in symptoms of the CNS, GI system, and autonomic manifestations due to abrupt cessation of chronic in-utero exposure to substances at birth.
Post-gastrostomy creation surgery, when the gastrostomy tract is healed and considered established, patients become candidates for a low-profile gastrostomy tube (G-tube). Equity-Focused Quality Improvement (EF-QI) interventions address the needs of equity-deserving groups and the root causes of problems without worsening health disparities.
Inequities in social determinants of health (SDOH) contribute to poor health outcomes. SDOH impact access to care, treatment adherence, and overall health. Health-care systems are increasingly recognizing the importance of screening for SDOH to reduce health disparities. However, barriers exist in effectively screening and addressing SDOH in clinical practice.
Collaborative practice in health care is essential as it strengthens the relationship among teams and enhances an integrative work platform. Registered nurses (RN) and registered practical nurses (RPN) work together on specialized acute care (SAC) units utilizing the nursing skilled-mixed model.
An IEN Pathway Program was created to provide structured support, assessments, and resources for the IENs to safely transition into independent practice.
The recruitment of internationally educated nurses (IEN) is identified as one of the solutions to persistent health-care workforce shortages across the country. In 2022, IENs accounted for 13 per cent of all nurses in Canada, and this continues to increase with recruitment efforts and policy changes aimed at addressing health human resource gaps.
In 2016, there was a rapid increase of 455 per cent in severe obesity over 30 years. In 2018, 25 per cent of Quebec adults lived with obesity. In 2022, 30 per cent of Canadian adults lived with obesity, which affected women more.
Post-pandemic staff shortages have strained health-care professionals' physical and mental well-being, risking a 20 per cent loss of early-career nurses in the province according to a report from RNAO titled "Impact and Solution".
According to the International Council of Nurses, a key role of nurses is engaging in research to improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities (2021). Nursing research participation enhances clinical outcomes, improves retention, and prevents burnout (Mitchell et al., 2020; Smiley et al., 2023).
Your Health Space is a vital program aimed at supporting the mental health and well-being of health-care workers in Ontario, in response to the unique work-related challenges and needs of this workforce.
