Nursing

By Victor Romao

Anna Papanastassiou spends most days in her nursing classes learning how to care for people.

But in a quiet neuroscience lab at the University of Windsor, she is also learning how to study the brain through hands-on genetic testing.

The second-year nursing student is part of the university’s Outstanding Scholars program, a competitive initiative that pairs high-achieving undergraduates with faculty-led research projects.

By Sara Meikle

The University of Windsor’s Faculty of Nursing is advancing its research ecosystem through the launch of the Nursing Research Collaborative.

The new Collaborative marks a significant milestone in the Faculty’s strategic plan. It formalizes three core research pillars while creating intentional space to grow research capacity, foster collaboration and enhance impact across programs and communities.

By Sara Meikle

As Canada faces ongoing health-care worker shortages, internationally educated nurses (IENs) are increasingly relied upon to fill critical roles.

Research by Dr. Edward Cruz, a professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Windsor, suggests many of these nurses continue to encounter systemic barriers that limit their ability to fully integrate into the workforce — even as they are actively recruited to meet demand.

By Kate Hargreaves 

Bachelor of Education student Olivia Marsella always had a passion for helping others.  

In fact, before pursuing teaching, she completed an undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree during which she realized her real passion, even within healthcare, was education. 

By Kate Hargreaves 

When Bachelor of Education students Jillian Wawrow and Jessica Mladenoski pack their suitcases this April for their trip to Tanzania, they’ll also be loading up bags of school supplies, toiletries and menstrual products. 

Wawrow and Mladenoski are two of the 16 participants in this year’s Teach Tanzania trip, which has allowed students to make the three-week trip to Tanzania each spring since 2008.  

By Sara Meikle

The idea began in the emergency department, where police officers and registered nurses (RN) wondered: what if they could help people before they reached the hospital?

That question sparked Windsor’s Nurse–Police Team (NPT) program, which pairs officers from the Windsor Police Service with RNs from Windsor Regional Hospital to respond to calls in the city’s downtown core.

By Sara Meikle

Sara Williams knew she wanted to be a nurse by the time she was in Grade 6.

The pull toward health care came early, shaped by childhood visits to the hospital where her mother worked as a lab technician in Port Huron, Mich.

Annual “bring your child to work” days offered Williams an up-close look at patient care — and sparked an early fascination with the role of the nurse.

She carried that certainty into her first year of nursing school — until reality hit.

By Sara Meikle

When the Faculty of Nursing’s IJEDID Circle first met in 2021, there was no agenda — just shared food, open conversation and a simple but powerful question: what should equity and justice look like here?

That conversation sparked a movement.

By Sara Meikle 

When third-year nursing student Ava Mammarella reflects on her UWindsor experience, a theme comes to mind: growth.

From a first-year student discovering her path in health care to a mentor guiding others through the same transition, her journey through the Outstanding Scholars program highlights the transformative power of mentorship.

Mammarella says she has been drawn to medicine for as long as she can remember.

“I was that kid with the toy stethoscope, checking everyone’s heartbeat,” she says.

By Sara Meikle

Dr. Debbie Rickeard, a trailblazing nurse educator whose student-first approach and leadership in simulation-based learning have shaped nursing education at the University of Windsor and beyond, has earned national recognition for excellence in her field.

Rickeard received the Excellence in Nursing Education Award from the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN) for permanent, tenure-track, tenured and term faculty – one of the most distinguished honours in Canadian nursing education.