Isabel Maitland Stewart

Isabel Maitland Stewart (1878 to 1963) was a Canadian nurse who became one of the leading figures in nursing education in North America. Born the fourth of nine children in a family of Scottish descent, she trained at the Winnipeg General Hospital Training School for Nurses but was dissatisfied with how little hands-on teaching it offered, so she went on to earn a bachelor's and a master's degree at Teachers College, Columbia University. There she worked with Mary Adelaide Nutting on the Standard Curriculum for Schools of Nursing and, by 1925, took over the program as director and Helen Hartley Jenkins Foundation Professor of Nursing Education. She also founded the Winnipeg General Hospital nursing alumnae, helped establish the Manitoba Association of Graduate Nurses, chaired the Education Committee of the International Council of Nurses, and received the Finland Medal for Humanitarian Work in 1946.