Some of this care is in specialized areas, such as the operating room and intensive care unit, and nurses working in these areas are expected to develop the knowledge, skills and judgment essential for the management of complex patient problems. RNs are often the first to identify changes in a patient's condition, as well as trends in a patient's response to care. Nurses often act as a guide and interpreter for patients and their families trying to negotiate the complex and highly specialized environment of hospitals. Scholars of the history of nursing in Canada stress the need to examine the role that gender stereotyping and discrimination has played in the history of nursing.
Women dominate the profession of nursing.
Approximately 98 per cent of nurses in Canada are female. Furthermore nurses, like most women who entered the Canadian labour market, were historically poorly paid and were expected to be completely obedient to male authority. For most of this century, Canadian nurses received their training in hospitals, where they served essentially as free labour to the hospitals as they apprenticed to their craft. Probationers entered the hospital at the bottom of the nursing hierarchy, subordinate to juniors, who in turn looked up to intermediates, who deferred to senior students. Seniors were expected to comply with the directives of supervisory graduate nurses, who themselves answered to the superintendent of nursing.