Filipino nursing student Ryan Tandiama goes from hospital porter to the Canadian Nurses Association board

Born in San Juan, Philippines, University of the Fraser Valley nursing student Ryan Criztoff Tandiama started as a hospital patient screener and porter in Abbotsford and now sits on the Canadian Nurses Association board as its 2026-2027 student representative.

Ryan Criztoff Tandiama, a third-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing student at the University of the Fraser Valley, now serves as the student representative on the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) Board of Directors, according to a profile published by The Global Filipino Magazine on 31 October 2026. CNA's own board page lists him as a CNA Board Member for 2026-2027.

Born in San Juan, Philippines, Tandiama moved to Canada with his family in 2010. The magazine reports that he expects to graduate in December 2027 and is the first in his family to study nursing.

“I’m the first nurse in my family, but I don’t think the caring part started with me.”

From patient screener to porter

His introduction to health care began before nursing school. While still in high school during the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked as a patient screener at his local hospital in Abbotsford, and when that temporary position ended he continued as a porter and health care assistant. In 2022 he also began volunteering at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, logging more than 700 volunteer hours, the magazine says.

CNA's profile says he serves on the board of directors of the Fraser Valley Health Care Foundation, sits on its Equipment Committee and chairs its Youth Advisory Committee, and serves as 2nd Vice President of the Abbotsford Regional Hospital Auxiliary. The Global Filipino Magazine adds that he is Director of Communications for the British Columbia Association of Health Care Auxiliaries.

A national role

Tandiama is Director of Communications for the Canadian Nursing Students’ Association, a role that includes serving as Student Representative on the CNA board. At CNA Conference 2026 in Winnipeg, he contributed to the planning committee and moderated panels exploring nurse-led approaches to well-being and retention, according to the magazine.

Lessons from Terrace

The profile opens in an emergency department in Terrace, northern British Columbia, where Tandiama did a summer placement as an Employed Student Nurse. Many colleagues there were travel nurses, and on some shifts it seemed most were Filipino. “Their backgrounds in the Philippines weren’t the same, and neither were their routes into nursing,” he told the magazine. “These were people I knew by name, and no one story could stand in for all of them.”

He now works as an Employed Student Nurse in Vancouver Withdrawal Management, with a longer-term ambition to build a career in rural and northern emergency nursing. He hopes more Filipino nursing students and young nurses will put themselves forward for leadership: “I’d like the names on nomination lists to look more like the nurses on the floor.”

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