Year in review 2019-2020
YEAR IN REVIEW 2019–2020
Eagerly anticipated, the Connell School’s 2020 Year of the Nurse turned out to be less the celebration we had hoped for, and more an affirmation of our abilities and strengths.
This year, in honor of the Year of the Nurse, we created a monthly video series of students, alumni, and faculty recalling the first time they felt they had truly become a nurse. In the most recent video, Loic Assobmo, M.S. ’17, said, “The thing about being a nurse—that really defines us—is our ability to treat the whole patient.”
That statement resonates more strongly today than ever.
Boston College nurses accomplished a great deal in 2020. This edition of the Year in Review details outstanding work of our faculty, alumni, and students. But most importantly, it underscores the fact that, at the Connell School, we want our students to flourish as whole people. And we’re thrilled that they take that lesson to heart, and pass it along to their patients, colleagues, and community members.
Wishing you good health and safety,
Dean Susan Gennaro
Responding to COVID-19
Translating a Pandemic
Alumni Leadership
On the Front Lines
Affecting Policy
Faculty and Students at Work
CSON throughout the Year
Research Highlights
CSON Community
Program Launches
Our New Faculty
Community Partnership
Recognition and Honors
International Experiences
Philanthropy
In Memory
About the Connell School
By the Numbers
About Us
TRANSLATING A PANDEMIC
Assistant Professor Nadia Abuelezam, who is an infectious disease epidemiologist, quickly became a vital resource for the public and the media seeking information about COVID.
Abuelezam and other Boston College experts in biology, medicine, political science, and public health gathered in a series of COVID-related virtual panel discussions. View fireside chats.
Abuelezam co-authored a piece on what it means to “distance” ourselves from one another and from disease in Elemental, a new Medium publication for science-backed health and wellness coverage.
Abuelezam was also interviewed about the pandemic:
- on CNN International, CNN.com, and NBC News,
- on All In with Chris Hayes, Morning Joe, and AM Joy, all on MSNBC
- in the Washington Post and the New York Times
- in the Associated Press in March and May
- in Boston Globe articles about herd immunity, Massachusetts becoming a hot spot, and the iceberg phenomenon
- on Bloomberg Business Radio and Bloomberg Baystate Business News
- in a discussion on CommonHealth and Radio Boston, both on WBUR
- and on WGBH Morning Edition and WBZ NightSide with Dan Rea.
ALUMNI LEADERSHIP DURING COVID-19
Adelene Egan ’18, an ER nurse at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, who captured caregiving during the pandemic by photographing her colleagues. Her series, Faces of the Frontlines, was featured by NBC News 4 New York and Spectrum News NY 1.
Stacy Hutton Johnson, Ph.D. ’15, was chief nurse at Boston Hope, a 1,000-bed medical center constructed inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for post-acute COVID-19 patients and homeless patients with COVID-19.
Julia Klein ’18 and fellow night-shift nurses at NYU Langone in Manhattan transformed their medicine/oncology unit into an acute COVID+ center.
John Welch, M.S. ’12, a senior nurse anesthetist at Boston Children’s Hospital, is overseeing the public health workers in the Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative. The program focuses on reaching out to the contacts of confirmed positive COVID-19 patients to identify and help those who may have been exposed to the virus.
“Working as a nurse during this time has made me prouder than ever to be part of the nursing profession.”
FACULTY ON THE FRONT LINES
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In addition to teaching and research, CSON faculty are also involved in clinical practice. Associate Professor Jane Ashley, Clinical Instructor Dorean Behney Hurley, and Clinical Instructor and CSON Assistant Department Chair Jacqueline Sly shared their experiences as nurses during COVID-19.
AFFECTING POLICY RELATED TO COVID-19
As chair-elect of the American Public Health Association Nursing Section, Associate Professor Joyce Edmonds provided state affiliates with information about federal funding allocated to local public health authorities. She emphasized that it be used to hire public health nurses at the front lines of case identification, contact investigation, and support for families in quarantine. She also co-authored the article “A Call to Action for Public Health Nurses During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in the journal Public Health Nursing.
Professor Dorothy Jones is working with a team at Massachusetts General Hospital on a variety of measures, including evaluating the impact of the current crisis on the nursing workforce and its many roles.
Assistant Professor Monica O’Reilly-Jacob and her research colleagues are working to fast-track a new nurse practitioner (NP) policy project now that several states have lifted restrictions to allow NPs to fully practice for the duration of the COVID-19 state of emergency. They are taking this opportunity to look at NP contributions during crises and how full-practice authority changes NP practice.
FACULTY AND STUDENTS AT WORK
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Clinical Assistant Professor Donna Cullinan runs a clinic at Fuller Village in Milton where she cared for patients with chronic or urgent conditions who were unable to be seen in an office setting because of the pandemic. Population Health student Kathryn Ferguson ’20 worked alongside Cullinan.
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Clinical Assistant Professor Julie Dunne volunteered at the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) Center for Mindfulness and Compassion to provide guided meditation sessions for nurses and other health care providers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. She also worked in the CHA department of outpatient psychiatry, both in telehealth and during person-to-person, urgent care encounters. She recorded breathing meditations for BC students, faculty, and staff to practice.
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Dean Susan Gennaro discussed issues related to the pandemic, including those facing the school and the nursing profession, in a Zoom-based COVID-19 fireside chat.
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Part-time Adult Health faculty member Mary Kelley, an RN at Brigham and Women’s, was interviewed on Boston’s Channel 7 News about a patient whose family was able to “visit” safely in spite of the current no-visitor policy.
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CSON research scholar Cherlie Magny-Normilus was interviewed on a Haiti-based radio station about the importance of social distancing, cultural health beliefs, signs and symptoms, rapid COVID-19 testing sites, and information for family caregivers.
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Clinical Instructor Alison Marshall worked on the Influenza-like Illness floor at South Boston Community Health Center.
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A lab team led by Clinical Instructor Christine Repsha, who directs CSON’s Clinical Learning and Simulation Centers, identified options for virtual simulation and remote clinical learning to ensure that Connell students met the requirements to graduate and sit for the NCLEX on time.
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Clinical Assistant Professor Sherri St. Pierre volunteered at Mutual Aid Worcester, providing referrals and resources for social services including MassHealth, access to food pantries, and mental health counseling.
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Nurse Anesthesia Clinical Instructor Allan Thomas has been caring for patients in need of anesthesia at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
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Judith Vessey, CSON’s Lelia Holden Carroll Endowed Professor in Nursing, co-authored the editorial “Everything Old Is New Again: COVID-19 and Public Health” in the April issue of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing.
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Clinical Assistant Professor Donna Cullinan arranged for CSON undergraduates to partner with families from Boston College’s Campus School to complete their required Population Health and Synthesis hours. Seniors who provided respite care for Campus School families this spring included Maggie Cass, Dante Cobelli, Shannon Conley, Megan Cronk, Hope Fluet, Bridget Harrington, Minji Kim, Teresa Kim, Hailee Lacasse, Melissa McGourty, Emily Melucci, Erin Morrissey, Hao Pham, Mikaila Richards, Jen Shi, An-Julie Tran, Rebecca Tran, Abby Wieman, and Samantha Wold (pictured with Campus School student Dylan McAllister).
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Ph.D. student Amy Delaney helped put Department of Public Health plans in place at Franciscan Children’s, a pediatric post-acute health provider in Boston. She also cared for patients at Roslindale Pediatric Associates.
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Ph.D. candidate Jane Hopkins Walsh, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Boston Children’s Hospital, worked with patients with complex needs who could not be triaged remotely. As a Spanish-speaking provider, she works with populations who have high COVID+ rates, helping children and adolescents understand not only their own health but the risks facing the adults in their communities during the pandemic.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
“The thing about being a nurse—that really defines us—is our ability to treat the whole patient.”
CSON COMMUNITY
Ranked #27 in U.S. News & World Report
The Connell School of Nursing’s graduate program rose to #27 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings for best nursing school master’s programs. The Family Nurse Practitioner program is #9 in the clinical specialty rankings.
Pinnacle lecture
Pioneering Italian nurse leaders Gennaro Rocco and Alessandro Stievano presented the fall 2019 Pinnacle lecture about international collaboration and its effect on nursing research, practice, and education. Rocco is the steering committee director at the Scientific Research Center of Centro di Eccellenza per la Cultura e la Ricerca Infermieristica. Stievano is a research fellow in nursing at the Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship OPI.
New program partner
Last summer, the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs approved changing the Connell School’s nurse anesthesia program partner to the Associated Physicians of Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Previously, Anaesthesia Associates of Massachusetts had shared authority of CSON’s program.
Dean Susan Gennaro presented Deborah Washington, M.S. ’93, Ph.D. ’12, with the 2019 Dean Rita P. Kelleher Award. Washington is director of diversity for Nursing and Patient Care Services at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dean Susan Gennaro and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs Colleen Simonelli congratulated graduating CSON students in a video message.
PROGRAM LAUNCHES
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Last fall, Boston College introduced an Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Certificate Program for graduate students in the schools of nursing, social work, and theology and ministry. The 12-credit program—one of the first of its kind in the US—is designed to provide nurses, social workers, and ministers with the skills and knowledge to care for patients and families living with serious illnesses.
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In fall 2019, Boston College initiated a new interdisciplinary minor in Global Public Health and the Common Good. The minor’s six courses are taught by faculty from the Connell School, Law School, Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Social Work. Grounded in epidemiology, the program encourages students to analyze the moral, ethical, and legal foundations of public health and study the influences of social, economic, political, and environmental factors on patterns of health and disease.
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In September, CSON launched the Seacole Scholars Program—a living and learning community comprised of first-year female nursing students of color. The program seeks to learn if—by living, studying, and collaborating together—this intentional community will increase a sense of belonging for minority students. The program was named for Mary Jane Seacole, a 19th-century Jamaican-born nurse whose contributions to nursing were overlooked for many years due to racial prejudice.
OUR NEW FACULTY
IN THE COMMUNITY
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Students in Clinical Assistant Professor Donna Cullinan’s Population Health Practice in the Community course travel weekly to the Mattapan Teen Center, teaching health topics, but also mentoring and befriending the young adults.
FACULTY, ALUMNI, AND STAFF RECOGNITION
Nursing Research Librarian Wanda Anderson received the first annual Appreciation Award from the North Atlantic Health Sciences Libraries, a regional chapter of the Medical Library Association.
Kimberly Arouth ’84 was named chief executive officer of Visiting Nurse & Community Care, Inc., a leading nonprofit home care agency in eastern Massachusetts.
Connell School faculty Stacey Barone, Stewart Bond, and Julie Dunne were recently promoted to clinical professor, clinical associate professor, and clinical assistant professor, respectively.
The American Academy of Nursing (AAN) inducted Clinical Associate Professor Susan DeSanto-Madeya, Associate Professor Holly Fontenot, and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs Susan Kelly-Weeder as fellows at AAN’s annual conference in Washington, DC. Read more in BC News.
Michele Hubley, the administrative assistant in the Office for Nursing Research, was inducted into Alpha Sigma Nu, the national honor society of Jesuit colleges and universities.
After a career of more than five decades as a fierce advocate for and leader in the profession of nursing, Professor Dorothy Jones’s greatest legacy may be her role as a champion for her colleagues and other nurse scholars. Read more about Dottie Jones.
BC’s Academic Technology Advisory Board awarded an exploratory technology grant to CSON Associate Professor Corrine Jurgens and Andrew Hession-Kunz, a Carroll School senior lecturer, for a cross-disciplinary study of heart-rate variability.
Assistant Professor Britt Pados was elected a 2020 Fellow of the American Heart Association. Pados’s research helps pediatricians, hospitals, and specialists improve the way they identify and care for infants and toddlers who struggle with feeding. Read more from Boston College Magazine.
Clinical Associate Professor Patricia Reid Ponte was named to the Beth Israel Lahey Health System Board of Trustees for a three-year term.
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES
Undergraduate study abroad
Nearly 50 undergraduate nursing students studied abroad in 2019–20 in Australia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Chile
CSON developed a multifaceted partnership with Chile’s Pontifical Catholic University over the past seven years to build the first-ever nurse practitioner master’s program in Chile and educate Boston College nursing students about Chile’s health care system.
Dominican Republic
Eight seniors in the Population Health course traveled to the Dominican Republic in January, along with two graduate students, a Ph.D. candidate, and Clinical Instructor Rosemary Byrne. They conducted home visits, well-baby checks, and chronic medical condition follow-up, and gave community presentations on nutrition and diabetes, infectious diseases, and adolescent pregnancy.
Guatemala
In February/March, seven seniors, three nurse practitioner students, and three faculty traveled to Guatemala. There, guided by the director of health care promoters, they set up pop-up clinics to provide health care to nearly 150 patients in several communities and also provided home visits. The students also provided health education—in Spanish—on diabetes, nutrition, diarrhea prevention, and reproductive health.
Jamaica
In January, Clinical Assistant Professor Donna Cullinan, Clinical Instructor Maureen Connolly, and Clinical Assistant Professor Kellie LaPierre traveled to Jamaica with 12 undergraduates and five nurse practitioner students. The group treated more than 750 patients in mobile clinics and home visits and signed up more than 300 residents for free health insurance.
PHILANTHROPY
Mei R. Fu, whose research is focused on cancer-related symptoms and management of chronic illnesses, is the inaugural recipient of the Connell School’s Barry Family/Goldman Sachs Endowed Chair in Nursing. A gift from Boston College Trustee Steven M. Barry ’85 and Tammy J. Barry ’85, M.Ed. ’87, P’14, ’17, established the position. Fu received the 2020 Connie Henke Yarbro Excellence in Cancer Nursing Mentorship Award from the Oncology Nursing Foundation in April.
CSON received a generous donation from MedStar Health in honor of Maureen P. McCausland ’72, M.S. ’77. The gift recognizes McCausland’s leadership at MedStar, the largest health care provider in Maryland and Washington, DC, where she served as senior vice president and chief nursing officer. The Pinnacle lectures’ keynote speaker is now named the Dr. Maureen P. McCausland Pinnacle Keynote Speaker.
BY THE NUMBERS
Faculty
54
full-time faculty
Alumni
10,320
total CSON alumni
53
US states and territories
18
countries
ABOUT US
Degrees, programs, and certificates
B.S.
M.S. Three routes of entry to master’s degree programs in advanced practice nursing: traditional, direct entry, RN to M.S.
M.S./M.A. in Pastoral Ministry (joint degree program with the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry)
M.S./M.B.A. (joint degree program with BC’s Carroll School of Management)
M.S./Ph.D.
D.N.P. Four routes of entry to the Doctor of Nursing Practice program in advanced practice nursing: direct entry, post-bachelor’s, post-master’s, RN to D.N.P.
Ph.D.
Advanced practice nursing specialties
Adult-gerontology primary care
Family health
Nurse anesthesia
Pediatric primary care
Psychiatric/mental health
Women’s health