We Can Do Better: Reflections on Nursing Week 2025 

By Tara Horrill, Principal Investigator, ReACHE Lab 

May 15, 2025 

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. 

-Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Nurses are often called the backbone of the healthcare system. We are the largest body of regulated healthcare professionals in Canada and consistently ranked as one of the most trusted professions. And yet.

And yet, we are often not represented at senior leadership tables than other healthcare disciplines, and nursing leadership positions like Chief Nursing Officers have slowly eroded over the past several decades.

And yet, we are often left nameless and faceless. I routinely hear from friends, families and acquaintances about the exceptional care they received from ‘that nurse’, but they can almost always recount the physician’s name.

And yet, despite being the closest to patients and often the first healthcare providers that patients’ encounter in the healthcare system, we are rarely consulted in media. Many of us have been told by our institutions that we should not, or are not ‘allowed’ to speak to issues of health and healthcare.

And yet, despite our significant contributions to the health of Canadians and the glue holding the healthcare system together, if you are a nurse, most likely this Nursing Week, the extent of celebrations will have been coffee, Timbits, donuts, and maaaaaybe if you are really luck, a pizza lunch or a new water bottle. Scrolling Instagram, you are likely to see posts thanking nurses for being “caring”, “kind” and “compassionate” rather than highly skilled, technically proficient and forceful advocates.

So, it is not surprising that nurses are reporting burnout and are leaving the profession in droves. Nurses are burnt out and leaving not because the work is hard (although that is also true), but because the structures and conditions that they are working in are causing harm.

But what if instead of tokenistic praise and tepid coffee, we approach this Nursing Week as an opportunity to advocate for and advance the profession? We could elevate nurses’ voices in the media on issues of health, healthcare, and social policy. We have an opportunity to make visible the contributions that nurses make outside of direct care, including in government, policy making, education, research, and leadership. We have a responsibility to stop embedding gendered norms and expectations when talking about nurses and the nursing profession.

Importantly – and most relevant to our work at ReACHE Lab – we need structural changes that empower nurses to work to full scope and autonomously. Why? Because care that is patient-centered and equity-oriented is care that is tailored to the patients and families in front of us, and we cannot do that when are restricted to providing standardized, protocol based care. Empowering nurses to work autonomously and to full scope is an equity-promoting strategy that deserves more attention.

And finally, like Bader Ginsburg argues, we must forcefully advocate for nurses to be at every table where decisions about health and healthcare are being made.