https://www.infirmiere-canadienne.com/blogs/ic-contenu/2026/11/02/resilience-nest-pas-une-strategie-de-dotation
‘Over time, resilience has become less about professional strength and more about enduring conditions that should never be normal’
By Elizabeth Princewill-Sanni
November 2, 2026
istockphoto.com/Jacob Wackerhausen
Nurses need staffing levels that reflect patient acuity and workload, not best-case scenarios. They need protected breaks and realistic expectations around documentation. They need leaders who listen when concerns are raised and who respond with action, not reassurance alone.
Nurses are often praised for their resilience. We hear it during huddles, in staff emails and after particularly difficult shifts.
“Thank you for your resilience.”
Courtesy of Elizabeth Princewill-Sanni
“Resilience should never mean tolerating what is unsafe. It should not require nurses to be extraordinary simply to deliver ordinary, safe care,” says Elizabeth Princewill-Sanni.
“Nurses are so resilient.”
But for many nurses working at the point of care, those words land differently. They often come at the end of a shift that felt unsafe, exhausting, or simply unsustainable. Over time, resilience has become less about professional strength and more about enduring conditions that should never be normal.
Nurses are resilient. That is not in question. From my experience, resilience is often praised most when systems are under the greatest strain. The problem is when resilience becomes a substitute for adequate staffing, meaningful support, and safe working conditions.
When resilience replaces support
Resilience is a valuable quality in nursing. It allows us to adapt, recover, and continue caring for patients in complex environments. However, when resilience is repeatedly emphasized without addressing systemic gaps, it begins to carry unintended consequences.
In many workplaces, resilience is quietly used to normalize short staffing, heavy workloads, and chronic overtime. Nurses are praised for “pushing through” rather than supported to pause, question, or refuse unsafe conditions. Over time, responsibility shifts not deliberately, but subtly from systems to individuals.
What begins as encouragement can slowly become expectation.
What this looks like at the bedside
At the bedside, this shift is rarely dramatic. Instead, it shows up in small, familiar ways.
A nurse skips a break to keep up with patient needs. Another stays late to finish documentation because there was no protected time to chart. Someone comes in on their day off because the unit is short again. Calling in sick feels risky, even when unwell, because colleagues will have to absorb the workload.
Many nurses stop naming these moments as unsafe. They become part of “how things are.” Yet each one carries consequences for fatigue, focus, communication, and ultimately, patient care.
For nurses who are newer to the system, including internationally educated nurses, the pressure to be resilient can feel even heavier. When you are still learning workplace norms, communication styles, or team dynamics, speaking up may feel risky. Silence becomes a way to cope, not because of lack of knowledge, but because of uncertainty about how concerns will be received.
The cost of quiet endurance
The cost of this quiet endurance is not always visible in staffing reports or quality metrics.
It shows up as moral distress when nurses know what safe care should look like but cannot consistently provide it. It shows up as emotional exhaustion that does not resolve with a single day off. It shows up when experienced nurses leave bedside roles earlier than planned, or when newer nurses begin to doubt themselves rather than the system around them.
Burnout, in this context, is not a personal failure. It is often the predictable outcome of asking nurses to absorb pressures that belong at an organizational level.
What nurses actually need
If resilience is not the answer, what is?
Nurses need staffing levels that reflect patient acuity and workload, not best-case scenarios. They need protected breaks and realistic expectations around documentation. They need leaders who listen when concerns are raised and who respond with action, not reassurance alone.
Just as importantly, nurses need psychological safety and the ability to speak up without fear of being labelled difficult, ungrateful, or weak. This is especially critical for nurses who are new to a unit, new to the profession, or new to the Canadian health-care system.
Supporting nurses is not about lowering standards or reducing accountability. It is about creating conditions where professional judgment, collaboration, and patient advocacy can thrive.
Reframing resilience
Resilience should never mean tolerating what is unsafe. It should not require nurses to be extraordinary simply to deliver ordinary, safe care.
When supported by strong systems, resilience becomes what it was always meant to be: the ability to grow, adapt, and sustain a long, meaningful career in nursing. Without that support, it risks becoming a polite way of asking nurses to carry more than they should.
Canada depends on nurses. Valuing resilience is not enough. Supporting nurses with the structures they need is how we protect both the profession and the patients we serve.
Elizabeth Princewill-Sanni works as an oncology RN at the cancer centre at North York General Hospital in Ontario.
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#nurses-health-and-well-being
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#workforce-planning
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