A distinguished Canadian educator, Kathleen Russell was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia. She graduated in 1918 from the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing and, in 1920, became first director of the University of Toronto's Department of Public Health Nursing, established to prepare personnel for the expanding field of public health service. An outspoken advocate of progressive reform in nursing education, she soon became dissatisfied with the inadequate training provided at many Canadian hospitals. As head of the School of Nursing, founded at the University in 1933, she developed an internationally recognized programme of comprehensive nursing education at the university level. In 1949 Kathleen Russell received the Florence Nightingale Medal, the Red Cross Society's highest nursing award, for her outstanding contribution to nursing education.

Location

An interior wall plaque located outside the Kathleen Russell conference room at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, 155 College Street, 2nd floor, University of Toronto, Toronto

Themes

• Education
• People
• Scientific and technological innovations
• Women's history