Theme: Changing Lives. Shaping Tomorrow

May 6-12th, 2024

The theme recognizes the contributions of the tremendous impact that nurses have on individuals, communities, and the future of health care. We hope you embrace it as you show your support for Canada’s nurses this year.

Let’s break down the elements of the theme:

1. Changing Lives:
   • Patient impact: Nurses play a crucial role in directly impacting the lives of patients. Through their care, compassion and expertise, they contribute to positive changes in the health and well-being of individuals.
   • Advocacy: Nurses often advocate for their patients, ensuring they receive the best possible care and support. This advocacy can bring about transformative changes in people’s lives.
2. Shaping Tomorrow:
   • Innovation: Nurses are at the forefront of health-care innovation, contributing to advancements in treatments, technologies and patient care practices. Their commitment to learning and adapting helps shape the future of health care.
   • Educational influence: Nurses, as educators, have a significant impact on shaping the next generation of health-care professionals. Their knowledge and mentorship influence the future of the nursing profession.

Embrace nurses and shine a spotlight on them by following us on social media and using the hashtags #CNA2024 #NursingWeek2024 #NationalNursingWeek #IND2024 #Nurses2024 #NursesChangingLives #NursesShapingTomorrow

We look forward to celebrating National Nursing Week (May 6-12), Indigenous Nurses Day (May 6), and International Nurses Day (May 12) with you all!

• #DYK that March 19 is Certified Nurses Day? An international day of recognition celebrating certified nurses’ contribution to the nursing profession. Thank you to all the Medical-Surgical nurses who hold their CMSN(C) ® credential. To help celebrate #CertifiedNursesDay, March 19 -we’re inviting all nurses who hold a Canadian Nurses Association certification in Medical-Surgical nursing to proudly wear their certification pins today. Created by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the American Nurses Association in 2008, it’s now celebrated around the world.
• Show why credentials matter! Help celebrate nursing excellence on #CertifiedNursesDay, March 19.

The CNA Certification Program offers Canada’s only national specialty credential for nurses. With 19 nursing practice specialty exams available, CNA-certified nurses are recognized for their practice excellence and commitment to lifelong learning.

Specialty certification provides official recognition by nursing colleagues and health system stakeholders of the unique community practice focus and that certified nurses are qualified, competent, and current in the practice of their area of nursing.

Registration is for Spring will open January 15, 2024

If the nurse is not a CNA member, they can join CNA and save on their initial exam fees!

CNA’s new online system makes the application process easier than ever. Our user-friendly interface will even give you the ability to track the progress of your application every step of the way.

The Canadian Association of Medical and Surgical Nurses would like to thank Connect Medical Legal Experts for providing CAMSN members with access to all four articles in a series exploring the most common nursing negligence issues in Canada. These articles can also be found under the Education Corner tab.

1 – Miscommunication the Leading Cause of Malpractice Lawsuits Against Nurses
2 – Legal Issues in Nursing; Assessment
3 – Legal Issues in Nursing; Medication Errors
4 – Legal Issues in Nursing; Infection Control and Equipment Errors

Chris Rokosh is a popular speaker on medical legal issues in nursing across Canada and the U.S. She is an RN and founder of Connect Medical Legal Experts, a Calgary-based leader in Expert Witness Services, with a database of hundreds of medical, nursing and cost of future care experts across the country.

Connect Medical Legal Experts
Since 2001, Connect Medical Legal Experts has been a bridge between the Medical and Legal worlds, providing healthcare expertise to lawyers and medical legal education to healthcare.
Our mission is to openly share medical legal knowledge and expertise, with a goal of improving healthcare and legal outcomes.
Our vision is to positively impact healthcare by creating mutually beneficial relationships between healthcare and law. This vision drives us to serve tirelessly, with great passion and unscrupulous integrity.

A Legal Nurse Consultant (LNC) is a licensed, registered nurse who performs a critical analysis of clinical and administrative nursing practice, healthcare facts and issues and their outcomes for the legal and healthcare professions. For more information on LNC or if you’re interested in getting involved with Connect Medical Legal Experts, visit https://www.connectmlx.com/contact-us

In honour of National Nursing Week (May 8^th-14^th), learn about the history of the Nursing Sisters in Canada. Battle nursing, a concept begun by Florence Nightingale, found its way to Canada in 1885.

“This tribute to Canadian Nursing Sisters tells of these brave and dedicated women. Their story is one of humour as well as anguish. It is a story of unyielding women who braved all the hardships of war to do their duty and serve their patients, and of those who nursed the casualties left in the wake of war.”

Enjoy the rest of this publication, retrieved from Veterans Affairs Canada’s Remembrance Series, at:
www.veterans.gc.ca/public/pages/remembrance/those-who-served/women-and-war/nursing-sisters/nursingsister_eng.pdf

There are over 45,000 medical-surgical Registered Nurses in Canada. Medical-surgical nurses form the largest single group of nursing professionals in health care and make up over 18% of all RNs working in Canada!
While nationally med-surg numbers are quite notable, CAMSN has just over 800 members. This leads us to believe that a lot of medical-surgical nurses simply don’t know about CAMSN.

Have you told your friends and colleagues about the Canadian Association of Medical and Surgical Nurses?

Help us increase our membership numbers. It’s FREE and joining is easy! Just have your friends and colleagues fill out the registration form located in the “Membership” tab and e-mail it to Crystal Côté, our secretary, at crystal.cote@mail.mcgill.ca.

Top 10 Reasons to be a CAMSN Member:

1. Stay up-to-date with CAMSN activities
2. Receive quarterly newsletters
3. Connect with a community across Canada that shares a passion for medical-surgical nursing
4. Expand your knowledge and skills, share in best practices and remain current, connected and relevant
5. Access to CAMSN’s Standards of Practice
6. Demonstrate your commitment to competence in your specialty area
7. Opportunities to be featured or have your work featured in CAMSN’s quarterly newsletters
8. Discounted CAMSN conference registration fees
9. Access to archived newsletters and documentation from past conferences
10. Work collaboratively with the Canadian Nurses Association

The Canadian Nurses Association recently shared a Literature Review outlining the positive impact that certification has had on patient outcomes:

1. Mortality Rates & Failure to Rescue – Several studies found certified nurses were able to recognize and respond to a deteriorating patient quicker than non-certified nurses and that certification was associated with decreased mortality and failure to rescue rates (Cary, 2001; Martin, Arenas-Montoya & Barnetty, 2015; Kendall-Gallagher, Aiken, Sloane & Cimiotti, 201)
2. Infection Control – Lower rates of central line associated bloodstream infections associated with higher rates of certified nurses (Boyle et al, 2014; William, Lopez & Lewis, 2013)
3. Falls – Higher certification rates linked with lower total patient falls (Boltzet al, 2013; Kendall-Gallagher & Blegen (2009); Lange et al (2009)

Become part of the growing network of over 17,000 CNA-certified RNs across the country! Spring registration is currently open!! See the CNA Certification tab for more details.

At the 2016 CAMSN Conference, attendees had the honour of hearing from Dr. Qaiser Fahim MBBS, MHSc (Bioethics) on Patient-Directed Medical Assistance in Dying. Although his presentation was very informative, a number of questions were unable to be unanswered at that time as Bill C-14 was currently before the Senate.

After Bill C-14 was passed, a national task force, created by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), began developing a guide to assist Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners in their roles and ethical obligations regarding medical assistance in dying. On January 23^rd, 2017, the CNA released its national nursing framework on medical assistance in dying (MAID).

Please see the following link for more information and access to the framework:
https://www.cna-aiic.ca/en/news-room/news-releases/2017/cna-leads-the-development-of-a-national-nursing-framework-on-medical-assistance-in-dying