In the spring of 2005, the Canadian Museum of Civilization will open a major exhibition on the history of nursing in Canada. The Caring Profession will explore the history of vocational and professional nursing in Canada, from the establishment of New France to the present.

The Caring Profession will bring together the two parallel but separate nursing traditions in Canada: the religious, Catholic model and the secular British-inspired model. The day-to-day practice of nursing, as well as the struggle for recognition of the profession will be represented through artifacts, photographs, interviews and personal anecdotes.

A smaller version of the exhibition will go on a cross-Canada tour until 2008, the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the CNA. A complementary book is planned. The exhibition and the book will cover the following themes.

• Lay Nursing in Pre-Confederation Canada
• Midwifery and Maternity Care
• The Trained Nurse in the Home
• French Canada and the First Catholic Hospitals
• The Nightingale Influence and the Rise of the Modern Hospital
• Nursing Practice in the Hospital
• Public Health Nursing
• Religious Nursing Across Canada
• Outpost Nursing
• Military Nursing
• Nursing Education
• Professionalization and Unionization