Toronto General Hospital. School of Nursing

• Toronto General Hospital. Training School for Nurses
• Toronto General Hospital. School of Nursing

The Toronto General Hospital Training School for Nurses, later also referred to as School for Nurses and School of Nursing, was established in April 1881 and formally dissolved in August 1974.

The Training School for Nurses at the TGH was established in April 1881 at the instigation of the TGH Lady Superintendent Harriet Goldie and with the approval of the TGH Board of Trustees (granted March 21, 1881). The School’s initial enrolment was 17 students, but of these eight dropped out in the first seven months. The first graduating class (5 students) completed their program in March 1883. Initially, a panel of doctors examined graduating nurses orally; later, formal written examinations were instituted.

Miss Goldie retired in 1883 and was briefly succeeded as TGH Lady Superintendent and Superintendent of the Training School by Eliza Storrie Fulford, and then in March 1884 by Lucy Pickett. When Miss Pickett resigned in late 1884, Mary Agnes Snively was appointed in her place.

The first nurses’ residence was opened in 1887 and in 1896 the education programme was increased from two to three years. In 1905 Miss Snively’s dual role as Lady Superintendent and Superintendent of the Training School was divided, allowing her to concentrate on administering the School.

In 1907 the first arrangement of inter-institutional affiliation for the purposes of providing student nurses with specialized training was established between the TGH Training School for Nurses and the Hospital for Sick Children (TGH students received instruction and experience in obstetrical and medical nursing).

Miss Snively resigned in 1909 and in 1910 Robina L. Stewart was appointed as Superintendent of the Training School. Miss Stewart resigned in August 1913 and was succeeded in September 1913 by Jean I. Gunn.

In 1921 the education program in place at the Training School encompassed 630 hours of instruction:

Anatomy and Physiology, 90; Chemistry, 32; Bacteriology and pathology, 16; Hygiene, 12; Dietetics, 22; Materia Medica, 48; Bandaging, 20; Massage, 12; General and Medical Diseases, 36; Surgical and Gynaecological Diseases, 36; Obstetrics, 24; Pediatrics, 14; Communicable Diseases, 10; Nervous and Mental Diseases, 8; Diseases of Special senses, 7; Nursing procedures and Theory, 172; Ethics and History of Nursing, 28; Public Health and Social Services, 43 (“History of the School for Nurses” 1931, p. 39. TH 1.1.9.2).

In the 1920s and 1930s the School began admitting affiliated students from other schools of nursing: in 1928 students from the Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing for experience in medical nursing; in 1931 students from the Ontario Hospital for Mental Diseases at Whitby for surgical, medical and obstetrical nursing; and also in 1931 students from Riverdale Hospital in Toronto for experience in emergency nursing service. (Ibid. p. 46)

By 1931, its 50th anniversary, the School had graduated 1,867 nurses.

Jean Gunn retired in 1941 and in 1942 Mary Macfarland was appointed Superintendent of Nurses and Director of the School. In 1950 the name of the school was changed to the TGH School of Nursing and Miss Macfarland was designated Director of Nursing (in charge of both the Department of Nursing and the School of Nursing) assisted by an Assistant Director of Nursing Education and an Assistant Director of Nursing Services.

In 1956 the education program was fundamentally changed, from three years of instruction to two years’ instruction plus a one-year internship for professional experience.

Miss Macfarland retired in 1960 and was succeeded as Director of Nursing by Jean Dodds. In 1968 the curriculum was again changed: the third, internship year was dropped, leaving a two-year academic program In 1970 Jean Dodds retired and was replaced as Director of Nursing by Patricia Stanojevic. In 1974 the TGH School of Nursing ceased to function as an independent institution as a consequence of the transfer of diploma nursing education in Ontario from hospital schools of nursing to the community college system The TGH School of Nursing was subsumed as a campus of the George Brown College School of Nursing.

Added to Archeion November 6, 2012. Last updated: November 6, 2012.

Toronto Hospital Record Group. Sous fonds 1.1: Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing sous-fonds. Variations of name as found on student transcripts, Director’s reports, Annual Reports and Applications for Registration.