PPN101 Week 1 Notes — Fall 2025

Course Overview

• PPN 101: Professional Practice in Nursing
• Fall 2025, Week 1 overview slides included in transcript
• Purpose: exploring self and the nursing profession within health care, including historical, cultural, political, economic, and gendered contexts
• Intro to ethical and legal aspects of nursing
• Introduction to comprehensive understandings of the nursing profession and relational practice

Course Learning Outcomes

• Relate the personal and professional self to the nurse’s role
• Interpret the nursing process and nursing frameworks
• Examine the ethical and legal obligations of the nurse
• Critique the historical image of nursing
• Explore the gendered, political and economic nature of nursing
• Understand the historical, societal and environmental context of Indigenous health in Canada

Important Resources & Information

• Syllabus and Textbooks/E-resources (E-reserves)
• Methods of evaluation (details in next slides)
• Turnitin
• Learning resources
• Class expectations
• Rubrics
• Weekly planner
• Student handbook

Course Evaluations

• Quiz #1: Short answer questions — $15\%$ (Week 5)
• Presentation: Group presentation — $25\%$ (Week 8)
• Quiz #2: Multiple choice — $25\%$ (Week 9)
• Final Exam: Multiple choice — $35\%$ (Exam period)
• Total: 100%

Introduction to Centennial Luminate

• What is Centennial Luminate?
• How it will be used in PPN 101
• Your responsibilities in this platform
• How to access Centennial Luminate: link provided:
  https://luminate.centennialcollege.ca/ultra/organizations/76531/outline/edit/document/23315941?courseId=76531&view=content

Fall 2025 Classroom Learning Strategies

• Site-specific strategies, guidelines and plans
• Reflection on past strategies: "What worked for you in the past?"

Communications (Instructor)

• Professor contact: Phone, Office Hours, Email
• Individual appointments available upon request via e-mail, Zoom and/or phone

Getting Acquainted (Week 1)

• Getting Acquainted activities and prompts

Student & Instructor Expectations

• Slide prompts reflection:
  "wow, you / DID THAT?? EXCEED EXPECTATIONS, INCLUDING YOUR OWN."

Week 1 Objectives: Introduction, history & images of Nursing

• Become familiar with and use the Student Handbook and PPN101 Syllabus
• Introduce nursing as a profession; describe nursing professionalism
• Discuss nurse pioneers and their diverse contributions
• Discuss public images and contemporary views of nursing influenced by social, economic, political factors
• Identify strategies to support an accurate, positive and inclusive image of nursing as a professional career

Getting to Know the Collaborative Student Handbook and Syllabus

• Go online (Centennial Luminate) to retrieve Handbook and Syllabus
• Answer questions:
  1) What philosophical beliefs are foundational to the Collaborative Nursing Degree Program? (to be discussed in detail next week)
  2) What are the curriculum content themes, years one to four?
  3) What is Academic Integrity? What are some examples of academic misconduct?
  4) Why are scholarly assignments important in a nursing program?
  5) How would you describe a B+ paper submission?
  6) What kind of learning resources are available to you at the University/College?

Nursing as a Profession

• Nursing is:
  • a practice discipline
  • a self-regulated profession
  • maintain competencies (knowledge and skills) to guide evidence-informed decision making in practice
  • accountable to the public through licensing/registration exams upon graduation
  • guided by CNA and provincial/territorial regulatory code of ethics, nursing standards, best practice, research and laws/regulations that guide practice
• Source: Mallette & Young, 2022, p. 7

Nursing Professionalism: Attributes

• Knowledge
• Accountability
• Autonomy
• Self-regulation
• Inquiry
• Collegiality
• Collaboration
• Innovation
• Ethics
• Values
• Source: Mallette & Young, 2022, p. 7

When you think of nursing/nurses today

• Reflective prompt introduced for class discussion

Historical Images of Nursing – Yesterday, Today, Forever

• Slide title with visual prompts (images such as "Nurses Are Needed Now!" and military/nurse recruitment posters)
• Questions prompting noticing and interpretation of historical images

Why is it important to understand history when thinking about nursing today?

• Provides an informed and critical understanding of society
• Helps understand the meaning of nursing and nursing experiences conceptually
• Facilitates sharper reflection on the current system and stakeholders
• Influences current research about nursing as a discipline and profession
• Teaches us about who we are and where we are going
• Source: Potter & Perry, 2024, p. 34-35

Other Reasons to Know Our Nursing Roots

• Develop professional identity
• Promote group cohesiveness and pride
• Knowledge about practice relationships
• Challenge conventional wisdom
• Understand political, social and economic influences today
• Contributes to advancement of the nursing profession
• Source: CNA: The Value of Nursing History Today, 2007

Florence Nightingale

• Not just a founder: she was a pioneering nurse-researcher and epidemiologist
• Advocate for patients
• Believed nursing is both art and science with its own knowledge base, distinct from medicine
• Scholar and theorist; innovator in care
• Developed an apprenticeship training model that solidified nursing as a respectable occupation for women
• Years: 1820–1910

"The Angel of Mercy" (Historical image of nursing)

• Timeframe: Mid 1800s through World War I
• Portrayed nurses as noble, moral, religious, virginal and self-sacrificing
• Strongly tied to religion and religious imagery
• Florence Nightingale cited as epitome of the angel of mercy
• Question posed: Is this an accurate portrayal of Nightingale?
• Source: Red Cross, 1918

Indigenous Caregivers

• Indigenous women healers played vital roles as nurses and midwives in settler societies
• After Confederation, federal assimilation policies sought to eradicate Indigenous culture, including healing knowledge
• Indigenous women largely barred from nursing schools until the 1930s
• Source: Wytenbroek, 2017

Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture (1890–1996)

• First Indigenous nurse
• Faced challenging career path; not accepted to Ontario nursing school
• Accepted to nursing school in New York
• Joined the US Nurse Corps during WWI
• After WWI, returned to Canada to join the Six Nations Reserve; worked as nurse and midwife
• Source: Mallette & Yonge, 2022, p. 2

Harriet Tubman, Mary Eliza Mahoney & Lillian Holland Harvey

• Dared to break through cultural norms to provide care to communities
• Advocated for rights of all people; demonstrated grit, integrity and perseverance
• Earned same qualifications and positions as non-Black colleagues
• Individuals: Harriet Tubman (1820–1913), Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845–1926), Lillian Holland Harvey (1912–1994)
• Source: https://www.registerednursing.org/articles/african-american-nurses-making-history/

Bernice Redmon (1917–1993)

• Could not attend nursing school in Canada in the 1940s; pursued diploma in Virginia (1945)
• Returned to Canada to practice Public Health Nursing in Nova Scotia
• First Black nurse appointed to the Victoria Order of Nurses in Canada
• Response to pressure on Canadian nursing schools to admit Black women
• Source: Mallette & Yonge, 2022, p. 2; https://museumofhealthcare.blog/black-history-month- bernice-redmon/

The First Black Nurses to Graduate from a Nursing Program in Canada (1948)

• Visual: photograph from 1948 showing Black nurses graduating
• Significance in Canadian nursing history
• Source: Mallette & Yonge, 2022, p. 2; https://twitter.com/malindasmith/status/1097169947996839937

Canadian Nurses’ Association (CNA) and Nursing History

• CNA role: provide knowledge of nursing history to socialize new nurses into the profession
• Encourages critical thinking among nurses
• Shares responsibility with all nurses to integrate nursing history into education and professional awareness
• Actively supports nursing historical research
• Reference: Nursing In Canada CNA 1908-2021; YouTube link and CNA page

Reflective Prompt: How have your ideas about nursing been shaped by history and/or the media?

• Encourages personal reflection on influences of history and media on current perceptions

Why Does IMAGE Matter?

• Symbiotic relationship between professional image and socio-political-economic contexts
• Stereotypes are pervasive and can influence professional image and credibility
• Professional image influences recruitment and socialization into the profession
• There is increased pressure for nursing to define itself and its outcomes
• Source: Price et al., 2014

What Shapes Our IMAGE?

• Media representations and news coverage (strikes, shortages, spotlights, etc.)
• TV/movie portrayals of nursing
• Advertisements about nursing
• Public perceptions
• Personal lived experiences
• Nursing as a career choice and perceptions of nursing, ongoing
• Influences from nursing associations and educational institutions
• Key framing: nurse pioneers, scholars, and trailblazers
• Source: Price et al., 2014

Nursing Images in the Media (Examples)

• Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie) and other actors (Morgan, René, Chris Freeman, Zellweger, Kinnear)
• Grey’s Anatomy, Nurse Betty, The Golden Globes, etc. (examples listed in slides)
• Note: portrayals range from idealized to sensationalized; list reflects media diversity

The Mother, the Sex Symbol and the Careerist (Price et al., 2014)

• The Mother: 1945–1965 postwar emphasis on family values
• The Sex Symbol: post mid-1960s—sensual, romantic, less associated with intelligence/skill; examples include MAS*H
• The Careerist: current portrayal—intelligent, logical, progressive, empathetic, assertive; sophisticated; reduced gender role constraints

Videos: Nursing Images Today (Online Resources)

• Just a nurse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jds1AlKzVGg
• I Am Your Nurse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?timecontinue=3&v=gjngcRhe6b4&fe ature=emblogo
• NURSE TV featurette (2008): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OkBPbKNlYg&feature=related
• Be A Nurse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xf5Vi3k78
• If Florence Could See Us Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGZgUYTx-58&feature=emb_logo

Images of Male Nurses

• Slogans and visuals question: "ARE YOU MAN ENOUGH TO BE A NURSE?" with various imagery (e.g., US Navy, Harley Rider, etc.)
• Themes: masculinity in nursing and challenges to male entrants
• Source: Slide content with multiple visual references

The History of Nurse Imagery and Implications for Recruitment (Price et al., 2014)

• Narrative research on Millennials (1980–2000) career choices
• Findings: historical images can inspire but also create dissonance
• Virtue scripts (nurses as kind and compassionate) can trivialize the complex and knowledgeable work nurses perform

Historical Nursing Images (Price et al., 2014)

• Nurses portrayed as heroes, harlots, harridans, and handmaidens
• Positive images during war frame nursing as heroic yet still associated with purity and motherhood
• Ongoing emphasis on nursing as life-or-death and the virtuous hero as victim
• Angel imagery implies innate virtuous traits (caring, compassion, comfort)
• Images reinforce nursing as a vocational calling with self-sacrifice
• Nursing as “hardship” historically framed as noble

Implications: Future Strategies to Shift the Image of Nursing (Price et al., 2014)

• Emphasize nurses’ knowledge and skill in images and language
• Connect potential recruits to practicing nurses in diverse settings
• Promote inclusive, positive images of nursing
• Present the “careerist” nurse as a realistic and proud modern image

Other Strategies

• Emphasize nursing’s unique body of knowledge defined through research
• Critically analyze media portrayals of nurses — get involved
• Take personal responsibility to uphold positive images of nursing

What is Your Ideal Image of Nursing?

• Student reflection prompt to envision ideal professional image

Fallen Angels and Forgotten Heroes (Stokes-Parish et al., 2022)

• Critical care nurses did not perceive angel/hero labels positively during the pandemic
• Concerns: unrealistic expectations, safety risks, remuneration
• Call for improved representations of nurse roles, recognition, and working conditions

Images of Nurses During the Pandemic: Four Themes (Stokes-Parish et al., 2022)

1) History Repeating: Angel imagery rooted in religious origins
2) Gender Stereotypes: Nursing portrayed as “women’s work”
3) Political Pawns: Nurses as heroes/angels used for politicians’ agendas
4) Forgotten Heroes: Respect diminished to villainization

Reflective Pictures and Thank You Messages

• Various images thanking nurses; discussion of public messaging around nursing roles

Next Week Preview

• Week 2: Program Philosophies & Personal and Professional Values

Notes and references are drawn from the provided transcript slides. Some slide captions include historical notes and attributions (e.g., Mallette & Young, 2022; Potter & Perry, 2024; Price et al., 2014; CNA, 2007; Stokes-Parish et al., 2022) and should be reviewed in conjunction with course readings for precise citations.