A nurse at Manitoba's largest hospital apologized for her "dishonest, selfish, and self-gratifying behaviour" as she was disciplined and fined last year for repeatedly failing to acknowledge her criminal record as required.

The nurse, who has been working at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre since May 2025, was fined $7,500, ordered to pay $4,000 in costs to the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba and issued a reprimand, according to a disciplinary decision by the college dated Nov. 27 but published online earlier this month.

She pleaded guilty to professional misconduct, admitting to a disciplinary panel that she failed to disclose past criminal convictions to the college when she became a nurse in 2020 and in three subsequent annual registration renewals, according to the decision.

In April 2009, when the woman was working as a teacher, she was arrested for possessing credit cards she'd stolen from her colleagues and charged with 35 offences, the decision says. The majority of those charges were either stayed or withdrawn, and she only pleaded guilty to seven charges.

She was sentenced to a three-year probation period, after which she would be given a conditional discharge if she met certain requirements. Her convictions did not appear on a standard criminal record check because they were removed from her record after the probation period was finished, according to the nurses' college decision.

When she applied for registration as a graduate nurse with the college in February 2020, and as a registered nurse in May 2020, she answered "no" to a question on the application forms that asked, "Have you ever been charged, convicted or found guilty (i.e. conditional discharge, absolute discharge or suspended sentence) of a criminal office or regulatory offence?" the decision says.

She repeatedly failed to disclose her criminal conviction when completing registration renewals, and believed that she didn't need to because it was "so long ago and it was done with," which is inconsistent with the ethical and professional obligations of a nurse, according to the decision.

At a hearing last year, the nurse apologized for her "dishonest, selfish, and self-gratifying behaviour."

She said being charged with professional misconduct showed her that she still has "something to learn," but that she had chosen to "accept … [her] past and learn from it and grow," according to the decision.

Her lack of complaints and disciplinary history, as well as her guilty plea and apology factored into her punishment, the decision says.

Martin Lussier, the college's manager of communications, told CBC News the nurse's criminal record was discovered as a result of a medical disclosure in April 2023, when a medical report indicated she had been previously charged with an offence.

In 2024, the college disciplined three nurses for failing to disclose previous impaired driving convictions during targeted annual background checks that began in 2018, when the college came under the Regulated Health Professions Act.

Lussier didn't have data to share on the prevalence of nurses who have failed to disclose criminal convictions, but said they have not been "among the top reasons for a complaint or employer report" in recent years.

Sonia Udod, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Manitoba, says she could see the HSC nurse believing the removal of her convictions from her criminal record following her probation meant she could deny that she had a criminal record to the college.

But that doesn't change the fact that she contravened the regulator's rules, Udod said.

"The decision, for this situation, it's sort of sitting at the intersection of public trust and regulatory responsibility," she told CBC News on Friday.

"Just because somebody has been convicted of a criminal offence does not necessarily predict that they will be professionally incompetent or a risk to patient safety."

Another nurse was censured and fined $1,000 by the college's complaint investigation committee for using copyrighted material that belonged to the Manitoba Association of Foot Care Nurses, according to a notice published online earlier this month.

The nurse used the copyrighted material for instructional purposes without permission, providing a copy of the association's policy and procedure guide to her students at Assiniboine College in 2023, which breached copyright law.

The nurse "purposefully removed the logo" of the association on the inside cover of the guide, replacing it with "Foot Care by Jan: Policy & Procedure Manual," the decision says.

The nurse received a letter in March 2023 from the association's lawyer, which asked her to explain how many copies of the guide she had distributed and whether she received any money for it, the decision says.

The nurse failed to respond to the letter, according to the censure.

The censure said both the college and the foot-care nurses' association found the actions "unethical and unacceptable" for a registered nurse.

The college's complaint investigation committee urged the nurse to reflect "deeply on the seriousness of this matter" and take steps to ensure she is complying with ethical and professional standards in the future.

"A reasonable and prudent registered nurse would have taken steps to verify ownership and obtain appropriate permissions before using content that did not belong to them," the committee wrote.

"This lapse in judgement resulted in financial loss to MAFCN, the owner, depriving them of rightful compensation and recognition."

Assiniboine College told CBC News the nurse no longer works there.