fall/winter 2008
answering the call: new dean susan gennaro
making it better: advanced practice forensic nursing at boston college
from the dean
bc
Susan Gennaro
nursing
fall/winter 2008
news
4 demarco chosen as aan fellow
Rosanna DeMarco has been selected as a
fellow of the American Academy of Nursing
It is a true pleasure to be
greeting you as the new Dean of
the Connell School of Nursing.
Over the past weeks, I have
spoken with many of you to learn
more about the Connell School
and your hopes for its future.
C
onsistently I am told of the
excellence of the students,
alumnae/i, staff, and faculty
as well as your universal aspirations
to continue to be known for educating the nurse-leaders of tomorrow. I
see the high regard in which Boston
College nurses are held, because
of their important contributions to
nursing scholarship, research, and
practice. Most importantly, I see
the important role Boston College
will have in developing the knowledge needed by the nurse-leaders of
tomorrow to improve the health of
the world’s people.
I have heard much about our
rich history and I look forward to
further formulating my vision of
the Connell School’s promising
future with your ideas and insights.
I appreciate the unique contribution that is made when the mission
and resources of Boston College
are combined with the resources
of Boston, the health care mecca of
the United States. It is an unbeat-
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Boston College Nursing VOICE
5 new tenure-track faculty members
Kelly Stamp and Lichuan Ye join the Connell
School as assistant professors of adult health
8 three apna janssen scholars named
Ariana Chao ’10, Jen Engel ’09, and Sarah
Maclaurin MS’10 chosen as 2008 American
16
Psychiatric Nurses Association Janssen
Scholars
features
16 answering the call
We welcome Susan Gennaro as the new dean
able combination and one of the
main reasons that my husband, Bill
Fehder (who joins me on the faculty
as a doctorally prepared nurseanesthetist), and I chose to move
to Boston and become part of the
Connell School family.
I look forward to working together
to take three strategic steps toward
meeting our vision. First, we must
educate nurses to be leaders in a
global world. Next, we must foster
diversity in order to develop new
solutions to the problems of tomorrow. Finally, we need not only to
access, evaluate, and translate evidence into practice—one hallmark
of today’s nurse-leader—but also
to develop knowledge and effective
knowledge collaborations. Florence
Nightingale herself collaborated
as a nurse in the Crimea as she
used statistical and research techniques to identify explanations for
morbidity and mortality among
soldiers, translated this knowledge
into more effective nursing prac-
tice, and advocated for changes in
health policy to improve the plight
of her soldier patients. Finally, she
collaborated to establish new models of nursing education in more
than one country—the Nightingale
schools. Tomorrow’s Nightingales
will also need to work with a cohort
of experts to isolate problems and
identify solutions. The Connell
School of Nursing will have a central part in developing knowledge
and in brokering knowledge partnerships.
Today I find myself blessed to
be greeting you as the Dean of the
Connell School of Nursing. I look
forward to meeting you and I thank
you in advance for your help and
support as we move together into
the future.
of the Connell School
22 making it better
The Connell School receives federal funding
to support the new advanced practice forensic
nursing specialty
voices
12 faculty publications
28 student VOICE: margaret burke ’08
22
22
37
Connell School students pilgrimage to Lourdes
29 profile: carla boudreau
The Connell School hires new grants manager
30 alumnae/i VOICE
37 alumnae/i weekend
38 dialogue
Lichuan Ye and Barbara Wolfe: Discovering
Nursing Research
dean
Susan Gennaro, RN, DSN, FAAN
editor
Joshua J. Jensen
Susan Gennaro, RN, DSN, FAAN
Dean and Professor
8
art director and associate editor
Kirsten Erwin
contributors
Margaret Burke ’08
Barbara Wolfe, PhD, APRN, CS, FAAN
Lichuan Ye, PhD, RN
The Boston College Nursing VOICE is published twice
a year by the Boston College William F. Connell School of
Nursing, Office of Marketing and External Relations.
We welcome letters and comments from readers at:
photography
Kerry Burke
Kirsten Erwin
Chad Minnich
Lee Pellegrini
Stephen Vedder
Office of Marketing and External Relations
William F. Connell School of Nursing
Boston College
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
or by email: nursing.alums@bc.edu
fall/winter 2008
3
news
rosanna demarco chosen
as aan fellow
Rosanna DeMarco, associate professor of community health at the
Connell School, has been selected as
a fellow of the American Academy of
Nursing (AAN). Fellows are selected
by their peers for their outstanding
contributions and achievements in
nursing. The AAN has approximately
1500 fellows, who are leaders in
nursing education, management,
practice and research. AAN fellows
pledge to work toward a better health
care system by enhancing quality of
care, reducing health inequalities,
promoting healthy behaviors, and
integrating mental and physical care.
DeMarco’s work focuses on
women, marginalization, and health
behaviors. She is the co-producer of
an HIV prevention education film
entitled “Women’s Voices Women’s
Lives,” which is used by AIDS service organizations across the United
States and has been translated into
Spanish and Vietnamese. The film is
part of an interdisciplinary community-based HIV and AIDS prevention
program DeMarco developed, translating the real experiences of women
suffering from chronic illness into
4
Boston College Nursing VOICE
preventive messages for others.
In 1998, she joined other nurses
to develop Healing Our Community
Collaborative, a prevention education program for inner-city Boston
women. She is also the co-founder of
Sistah Powah, a peer-led neighborhood-based prevention program for
seropositive women of color.
As an AAN Fellow, DeMarco will
continue to advance health policy
using the model of collaborative
community-based knowledge. “I will
work with great effort,” she says, “to
increase the expertise of nurses and
develop nursing leaders who can
serve the public and nursing profession by generating creative solutions to complex health problems
such as HIV/AIDS.” June Horowitz,
Connell School professor and also
an AAN fellow, called DeMarco’s
contributions to nursing “highly
significant, sustained, and ongoing.”
“[DeMarco’s] career is characterized
by outstanding and sustained productivity,” she says.
kate gregory selected as
2008 cans/anf scholar
Kate Gregory, assistant professor of
maternal child health at the Connell
School, has been named the 2008
Council for the Advancement of
Nursing Science (CANS)/American
Nurses Foundation (ANF) Scholar.
This honor comes with a grant,
given each year in all areas of nursing for nurse researchers to conduct
studies that contribute toward the
advancement of nursing science and
the enhancement of patient care.
Gregory’s research interests pertain
to the feeding, growth, and development of preterm infants, and she will
use her grant to continue this work,
examining whether urinary biomarkers predict necrotizing enterocolitis
in preterm infants. Necrotizing
enterocolitis is a common problem
in preterm infants and early detection could lead to much improved
outcomes in this vulnerable patient
population.
barbara wolfe selected as
dsm-v work group member
Barbara Wolfe, professor and director of the center for nursing research
at the Connell School, has been
tapped by the American Psychiatric
Association to serve as a work group
member to help develop the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMV), the foremost manual used worldwide by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to diagnose
mental disorders.
Wolfe, whose research focuses on
the psychobiology of eating disorders, will serve as a member of the
eating disorders work group, whose
membership is made up of internationally recognized researchers
and clinicians. The work group will
review scientific advances and exam-
ine new research since the manual
was last updated, a process that will
continue over the next four years.
new faculty member
kelly d. stamp, phd,
arnp-c
amar named robert wood
johnson foundation
nurse faculty scholar
Angela Frederick Amar, assistant
professor of psychiatric-mental
health nursing at the Connell School,
was one of 15 junior faculty nationwide to receive an inaugural Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse
Faculty Scholar Award, a new national program that seeks to advance the
careers of talented junior nursing
faculty.
The award will support Amar’s
research into what factors encourage
college women to report experiences
of violence. Despite campus prevention and outreach programs, most
young women do not report such
episodes, even though doing so is
critical to receiving help in managing the immediate and long-term
physical and mental health effects
and promoting healthy, long-term
lifestyle changes. Amar intends for
her research findings to be used to
develop policy and programming,
both on campus and nationwide.
new faculty member
lichuan ye, phd, rn
Assistant Professor, Adult Health
Assistant Professor, Adult Health
PhD: University of South Florida
Post-MS: University of South Florida
MS: University of South Florida
BSN: Southeast Missouri State
University
Kelly Stamp’s research interests
include nurse practitioners’ judgments of coronary heart disease
risk (CHD), patients’ judgments’
of their own coronary heart disease
risk factors and the necessity of
treatment, and health care providers’ treatment decisions based on a
cardiac risk assessment. In her current work, Stamp is evaluating how
nurse practitioners make treatment
or referral decisions based on CHD
risk factors. Stamp is certified as
an adult nurse practitioner and is
an active member of Sigma Theta
Tau International Honor Society of
Nursing and the American Heart
Association.
PhD: University of Pennsylvania
School of Nursing
MS: Sichuan University West China
Medical School
BSN: Sichuan University West China
Medical School
Lichuan Ye’s research focuses on
women with sleep disorders, with
particular interests in symptom
presentation, daily functioning,
and treatment outcomes. Specifically, her work explores gender
differences in the clinical presentation of obstructive sleep apnea; she
is interested in whether women respond differently than men to continuous positive airway pressure
treatment. Ye is a member of the
Sleep Research Society and Sigma
Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. She was awarded
the 2008 dissertation award by the
Eastern Nursing Research Society
and by the Council for Advancement of Nursing Science.
fall/winter 2008
5
news
The award will also support Amar’s
participation in a training program
that will help prepare her for academic leadership and translating
evidence into policy and practice
initiatives. “I hope to use this generous support from the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation to execute a
substantive research project that will
result in data that informs policy and
practice to create real change for real
people,” says Amar. “The mentorship, training and networking opportunities are pivotal to reaching my
career goals.”
Connell School Dean Susan
Gennaro comments, “The Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation’s support for nursing is well established
in enhancing academic and clinical
nurse leadership. As someone who
has personally benefited from the
Foundation’s support as a Robert
Wood Johnson Clinical Nurse
Scholar, I know that Angela’s career
will be enhanced by the educational,
leadership and networking opportunities provided by the program.”
Gennaro adds, “She is a perfect
recipient of this important and prestigious fellowship because she is
a visionary, committed researcher
and teacher who has made and will
continue to make significant contributions to improving the health of
women and families in the United
States.”
The goal of the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty
Scholars Program is to develop the
next generation of national leaders
in academic nursing through career
development awards for outstanding
junior nursing faculty. The program
aims to strengthen the academic
6
Boston College Nursing VOICE
productivity and overall excellence
of nursing schools by providing
mentorship, leadership training, salary and research support to young
faculty.
mary aruda appointed to
pediatric nurse practitioner content expert panel
Connell School Assistant Professor
of maternal child health Mary Aruda
was appointed in August
to the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner
Content Expert Panel. Panel
members within each nursing specialty develop the nationally recognized Board Certification Exams for
the American Nurses Credentialing
Center (ANCC). Aruda specializes in
health promotion, adolescent health,
adolescent pregnancy prevention,
and children with special health care
needs, interests which will provide
an invaluable contribution to
the panel.
roy, hazard honored by
massachusetts nursing
association
The Massachusetts Association of
Registered Nurses (MARN) honored
Barbara Hazard, former dean of the
Connell School, and Sr. Callista Roy,
Connell School professor and nurse
theorist, at its awards ceremony in
April in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Roy has been named a “living legend” by MARN. According to MARN,
living legends are “nurses whose
long-standing contributions over
the course of their careers serve as
an inspiration to other nurses. They
have exhibited creativity and innovation in practice and blazed trails for
other nurses to follow.”
Hazard was presented with the
2008 MARN Excellence in Nursing
Education Award. This recognition is
given annually to a MARN member
who provides excellence in nursing
education, and facilitates learning
and the development of learners.
Medical Center in Manchester, New
Hampshire, where she mentors
nurse anesthesia students from
Northeastern University and the
University of New England.
Calvin’s research interests surround
the phenomenon of postoperative
cognitive dysfunction (POCD) in
patients following cardiac surgery.
Through her research she aims to
determine if there is a difference in
cognitive outcome in patients who
receive a cognitive training intervention following cardiac surgery,
compared to those who receive usual
care.
“The funding provided by the
Association will support my current
research and provide a foundation
for future programs of research,”
Calvin says. “I will also be contributing to the body of knowledge for
future nurse anesthesia students.”
Connecticut Children’s Medical
Center on the Hematology/Oncology
Unit and at Children’s Hospital
Boston on the Bone Marrow
Transplant Unit. Newinsky spent
the past three summers working as
a staff nurse at a camp for children
with life threatening illnesses.
Rebecka Evans received dual
bachelor’s degrees in Nursing and
Sociology from the University of
Pennsylvania, going on to work
as a pediatric nurse at Children’s
Hospital in Philadelphia, then as a
travel nurse at various hospitals in
California and Boston. Evans plans
to return to the Connell School in
the fall for a post-master’s certificate
in psychiatric nursing. An accomplished artist, Evans also hopes to
find ways to integrate her passion for
art into her nursing career.
master’s students awarded scholarships at napnap
conference
calvin awarded doctoral
fellowship grant for her
anesthesia research
Connie Calvin, a Connell School PhD
candidate, has received the Doctoral
Fellowship Grant from the American
Association of Nurse Anesthetists.
Currently a faculty member in
the nurse anesthesia program at
Northeastern University, Calvin also
practices as a certified registered
nurse anesthetist for a cardiothoracic anesthesia group at Catholic
Two Connell School students were
presented scholarships at the 2008
National Association of Pediatric
Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP)
Annual Conference, held this past
April in Nashville, Tennessee.
Karina Newinsky MS’08 was
awarded the NAPNAP/McNeil
Scholarship and Rebecka Evans
MS’08 received the Reckitt Benckiser
Student Scholarship. Both scholarships are offered to promising pediatric nurse practitioner graduate students who are NAPNAP members.
After receiving her bachelor’s
degree from the University of
Connecticut magna cum laude in
2003, Karina Newinsky worked at
carol marchetti attends
summer research program
in switzerland
Carol Marchetti, a Connell School
PhD candidate, was awarded a
grant to attend a one-week intensive
practice-oriented research training course for doctoral students in
advanced quantitative design and statistical analysis in the health science
fields of nursing, public health, and
medicine. The summer program,
held this past August, was organized
by the Institute of Nursing Science
at the University of Basel in Basel,
Switzerland.
Course participants were introduced to advanced quantitative
methods focusing on the integration
of research design and statistical
approaches to analyze data, and the
interpretation of the results from the
application of these statistical methods. The course combined morning
lectures and afternoon seminars with
hands-on practice, giving students
the opportunity to immediately apply
the various data analysis techniques
presented beforehand. Marchetti’s
grant was funded by ThinkSwiss.
robert wood johnson
foundation awards funds
for master’s entry scholarships
The Connell School is among the
first institutions in the nation to
receive funding through the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
New Careers in Nursing Scholarship
Program. Grants provided through
this competitive program will be
used for scholarships to increase
the number of students enrolled
in the Connell School’s accelerated master’s entry program. This
groundbreaking national initiative,
launched by RWJF and the American
Association of Colleges of Nursing
(AACN), aims to help alleviate the
nation’s nursing shortage by dramatically expanding the pipeline of
students in accelerated nursing programs.
Boston College has already award-
fall/winter 2008
7
news
ed seven $10,000 scholarships to
incoming master’s entry students,
and will award an additional seven
scholarships to incoming students
in the spring semester. Award preference is given to students from
groups underrepresented in nursing
or from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Connell School will also use
grant funding to help leverage
new faculty resources and provide
mentoring and leadership development resources to ensure successful
program completion by scholarship
recipients. “This program aims to
safeguard the health of the nation
by helping to ease the nurse and
nurse faculty shortage,” said RWJF
President Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD,
MBA. “This new initiative also will
advance [RWJF’s] strategic goal of
promoting leadership in the health
professions.”
The RWJF New Careers in Nursing
Scholarship Program supports accelerated programs, which offer the
most efficient route to a nursing
career for adults who have already
completed a baccalaureate degree
in a discipline other than nursing.
Although enrollment in these programs has steadily increased over
the past few years, many potential
students are unable to enroll since
already having a college degree disqualifies them for receiving most
federal financial aid programs
for entry-level students. The New
Careers in Nursing scholarships
address this problem, and will also
address the overall nursing shortage
by enabling hundreds of students to
launch their nursing careers through
accelerated education. Additionally,
the program targets the need to
8
Boston College Nursing VOICE
recruit students from groups underrepresented in nursing or disadvantaged backgrounds.
eldredge awarded
boston college
community service award
Maureen Eldredge, undergraduate program assistant at the
Connell School, received the 2008
Community Service Award from
Boston College President William P.
Leahy, SJ.
The award is given annually to recognize an employee whose actions
truly exemplify the Jesuit spirit of
community service and involvement.
Eldredge has made community
service a central part of her 17 years
at Boston College. “If you are with
a Jesuit school why wouldn’t you be
involved in service?” she asks. “It’s
part and parcel of just who we are.”
Her work includes taking part in service trips to Nicaragua and Jamaica
and collecting donations of books
and clothing for Nicaraguan citizens.
She has also served as a member of
the parish council and chair of the
hospitality committee at St. Ignatius
Church, where she has been a member for 30 years.
St. Ignatius Church Pastor Robert
Ver Eecke, SJ, Jesuit-in-Residence at
Boston College, states that Eldredge
“has a heart of gold and never fails to
respond to the needs of those around
her.”
“Maureen is committed to the
success of individual students and
goes well beyond the expectations
of her job to work toward this,”
adds Connell School Associate Dean
Catherine Read, “but it is her commitment to Boston College and the
surrounding community that sets
her apart.”
Kathleen DeTeso ’08 confirms
Eldredge’s support of the nursing
students, saying “Maureen knows
every one of us by name. She’s
always right on top of everything we
do and need to do.”
“I love my undergraduate nurses,”
Eldredge says simply. “They are so
competent, so eager, so compassionate, so energetic, so caring. It’s great
to work with them.”
been selected as 2008 American
Psychiatric Nurses Association
(APNA) Janssen Scholars. This highly competitive national scholarship
is given to 15 undergraduate and 15
graduate nursing students interested
in psychiatric mental health nursing.
The Janssen Scholarship Program
seeks to encourage involvement in
patient and nurse advocacy, expand
concepts related to professional nursing organizations, and help students
better understand the role of the psychiatric mental health nurse.
The scholarship pays for Chao,
Engel, and Maclaurin to attend
the APNA Annual Convention in
Minneapolis this October, where they
will learn about philosophy of care,
pharmacology, and trends and issues
in psychiatric care. They will also
get the opportunity to work with an
APNA faculty mentor to guide their
career plans.
linendoll presented with
connell award
connell school students
chosen as apna janssen
scholars
Connell School undergraduates
Ariana Chao ’10 (left), Jen Engel
’09, and graduate student Sarah
Maclaurin MS’10 (right) have
At commencement this past May,
Nadine Linendoll, PhD ’08 was
presented with the 2008 Connell
Award, the highest honor a Boston
College nursing student can attain.
Linendoll has focused her studies on
the connection etween spirituality
and health care. Currently working
as a neuro-oncology nurse practitioner, she strives to give emotional
and spiritual support to patients
with brain tumors as well as to their
families.
“During an illness, the family caregiver becomes very important, and
my work aims to improve the caregiving experience through education
and support,” Linendoll remarks.
“Boston College has prepared me
well to deliver this holistic, comprehensive care.”
Prior to her study at Boston
College, Linendoll completed a master’s in divinity focusing on pastoral
care, and worked as a chaplaincy
intern at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital. Described as a “humble,
quiet, centered and calm individual,”
Linendoll’s professors and peers
have the very highest praise for her
work ethic and demeanor.
Associate Professor Ellen
Mahoney, who served as chair for
Linendoll’s dissertation titled “Family
Caregivers’ Perceived Symptom
Distress of Persons with a Primary
Malignant Brain Tumor” attests
to the value of Linendoll’s work,
emphasizing that “it gives a new
lens to enrich understanding of the
interaction between the experiences
of patients and caregivers, building
a foundation for future therapeutic interventions.” Mahoney calls
Linendoll an “extraordinary young
woman” whose work “embodies the
knowledge-research-practice interconnectedness that epitomizes the
discipline of nursing.” Assistant Clinical Professor Stacey
Barone also notes that Linendoll’s
“fresh and thoughtful approach” was
well appreciated by the students who
enjoyed hearing her lecture about
her practice as a neuroscience nurse
practitioner. “She has great promise
as a clinician, nurse researcher and
teacher,” says Barone. “Her human,
spiritual and skilled approach to
her patients and the discipline is an
excellent example of the limitless
potential of nursing at its finest.”
The Connell Award is named
for the late Boston-area businessman and philanthropist William
F. Connell, for whom the nursing
school was named in 2003. When
Linendoll entered the MS/PhD program in September of 2003, the
naming of the school was one of the
first activities she attended at Boston
College. “I was very impressed with
Mr. Connell’s strong work ethic,
community service and commitment
to family,” Linendoll recalls. “I am
so honored to receive this award
in honor of him. It inspires me to
live up to his high standards, and
make him proud of the graduates of
Boston College School of Nursing.”
daley elected to american nursing association
board of directors
During the American Nurses
Association (ANA) Biennial House
of Delegates meeting this past June,
Karen Daley, a doctoral student at
the Connell School, was elected to
serve a two-year term on the ANA
Board of Directors. Daley was one of
30 candidates that vied for various
leadership positions during ANA’s
2008 elections, held in Washington,
DC. Daley was also appointed by
the ANA to a seat on the American
fall/winter 2008
9
news
Nurses Credentialing Center Board
of Directors.
The ANA is the only full-service
professional organization representing the interests of the nation’s 2.9
million registered nurses through
54 constituent member nurses
associations. The ANA advances
the nursing profession by fostering
high standards of nursing practice,
promoting the rights of nurses in the
workplace, projecting a positive and
realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting
nurses and the public.
In response to her election, Daley
comments that, “there are many
critical issues facing ANA, not the
least of which is the need to grow the
membership of ANA and to expand
the influence of nursing across
policy and political arenas. I look
forward to the opportunity to serve
as a member of the ANA Board of
Directors and to contribute to those
dialogues and decision-making processes.”
jennifer taylor nominated for finnegan award
Jennifer Taylor ’08 was chosen by the
10 Boston College Nursing VOICE
Connell School faculty as the 2008
Edward H. Finnegan, S.J. Memorial
Award nominee. Each school at
Boston College nominates an undergraduate for the Finnegan Award,
and that individual represents the
school at University Commencement
by accepting the degree for his or her
class. The award honors leadership,
service, and humility. Taylor fully
embodies these qualities, having led
both faith-based and student organizations and participated in service
and mission projects from Africa
to Appalachia. Believing that “the
health of a nation is dependent on
the health of mothers and their children,” Taylor’s career ambition is to
become a nurse midwife to provide
services to women in underdeveloped nations.
Taylor has focused her volunteerism on missions that address the
interrelationship between poverty
and the health of women and children. She received grants to study
culturally effective health development in Liberia and to examine
childbirth practices of women in
Kenya, specifically the Nyanza province, which has a high rate of HIV/
AIDS. Last summer she worked in
a residential treatment center for
people with HIV, an experience that
enabled her to “put names and faces
to the AIDS epidemic” in the United
States. She has also participated in
five service trips to Latin America,
where she helped with construction,
education and physical therapy, and
volunteered as a translator.
Faculty mentor Joyce Pulcini
describes Taylor as “a natural leader
whose talents are most evident in
times of adversity.” Taylor’s peers
echo those sentiments, among them
classmate Kathryn Birch who shares,
“She is able to capture the true
essence of a person and draw it out
of them through encouragement,
initiative and patience. Jen is also a
leader who is not satisfied with the
way things are and will work hard to
make them better for the people she
cares about. Jen is very dedicated—
she does not give up easily on what
she has set her mind on!”
phd students awarded
2008–2009 nef scholarships
Connell School PhD students Kim
Francis and Brian French were
both awarded 2008-2009 academic
year scholarships by the Nurses
Educational Funds, Inc. (NEF), a
non-profit organization that seeks
and distributes funds to baccalaureate-prepared nurses who need scholarship assistance for graduate study.
NEF is administered by a board
of directors comprised of leaders in
both nursing and other health professions. Awardees are considered
for these competitive scholarships
based on their academic excellence
and potential for contributing to the
profession.
clinical research certificate
continuing education program
Our Clinical Research Certificate Program includes a rigorous curriculum to prepare you for today’s competitive marketplace. The Clinical
Research field—including careers as a Clinical Research Associate (CRA) or a Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC)—is a new, stimulating,
and innovative career choice for nurses. As a result of the recent movement to speed drug and medical device development, the need for
scientifically trained professionals to coordinate research studies has increased. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the demand
for qualified CRAs and CRCs is expected to double over the next ten years. Professionals trained for these demanding careers are currently
in short supply. Nurses have traditionally prepared for these roles through on-the-job training with physicians and scientists conducting
pharmaceutical research. The Boston College School of Nursing, Continuing Education Office now has a program for these positions.
Want to learn more? Attend a free Information Session/Clinical Research Open House. Please call 617-552-4256 for details.
February 4, 2009, 6:00 – 8:00 pm | April 23, 2009, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
www.bc.edu/ce
fall/winter 2008
11
faculty publications
jennifer d. allen
Allen JD, Savadatti S, Gurmankin Levy.
The transition from breast cancer
“patient” to breast cancer “survivor.”
Psycho-oncology, in press.
Allen JD, Shelton RC, Harden EA,
Goldman R. Follow-up of abnormal
mammograms among low-income,
ethnic minority women: Findings from
a qualitative study. Patient Education &
Counseling, in press.
angela f. amar
Amar, A. F. (2008). Violence education:
critical reflection on personal stories of
victims. Journal of Forensic Nursing. 4
(1) 12-18
Amar, A. F. (in press). Successful
links for electronic surveys. Journal of
Forensic Nursing.
Amar, A. F. (2008). Toto’s guide to
reading and using manuscripts in
forensic nursing practice. Journal of
Forensic Nursing.4 (1) 49-51.
ann wolbert burgess
Hazelwood, R.R. and Burgess, A.W.
(2009). Practical Aspects of Rape
Investigation: A Multidisciplinary
Approach. Boca Raton: CRC Press, A
Taylor & Francis Group.
Dowdell, E.B., Cavanaugh, D.J.,
Burgess, A.W., & Prentky,R., (in press,
2008). Children in the Foster Care
System: Vulnerable Girls and Foster
Care Placement Instability. MCN: The
American Journal of Maternal/Child
Nursing.
Burgess, A.W., Carr, K.E., Nahirny,
C., & Rabun, J.B. Non-Family Infant
Abductors: 1983-2006,(in press, 2008)
American Journal of Nursing.
Burgess, A.W., Mahoney, M., Visk, J. &
Morgenbesser, L. (in press, 2008) Cyber
Child Sexual Exploitation. Journal of
Psychosocial Nursing.
12 Boston College Nursing VOICE
Brewer-Smyth, K. & Burgess, A.W.
(2008) Childhood Sexual Abuse by a
Family Member, Salivary Cortisol, and
Homicidal Behavior of Female Prison
Inmates, Nursing Research, 57(3)
Morgenbesser, L.I., Burgess, A.W. &
Safarik, M.E. (2008) Motives in a Triple
Spree Homicide. Victims & Offenders,
3(1), 114-125.
workplace. Journal of Professional
Nursing.
Hart, K.A. & DeMarco, R.F. (2008).
Primary prevention of skin cancer in
children and adolescents: A review
of the literature. Journal of Pediatric
Oncology Nursing, 25(2), 67-78.
william fehder
Burgess, A.W., Ramsey-Klawsnik, H.
& Gregorian, S.B. (2008) Comparing
Routes of Reporting in Elder Sexual
Abuse Cases. Journal of Elder Abuse
and Neglect. 20(4).
Fehder, W. (2008) Nursing care and
management of pathological oral
conditions among women and children.
MCN, American Journal of Maternal
Child Nursing, 33 (1), 38-44.
donna cullinan
Fehder, W. (in press) The pharmacology
of central nervous system drugs. In
M. Brucker (Ed.) Principles & Practice
Of Pharmacology In Women’s Health.
Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Wolfe, B.E., Smith, A.T., Cullinan,
D.L. (in press). Eating disorders.
In P. Jackson Allen & J. A. Vessey
(Eds.),Primary care of the child with
a chronic condition, 5th ed. Mosby:
Philadelphia, PA.
rosanna demarco
DeMarco, R.F., Pulcini, J., & Haggerty,
L. (in press, 2009). The Doctorate
in Nursing Practice: A Survey of
Massachusetts Nurses, Journal of
Professional Nursing.
Vessey, J., DeMarco, R.F., Gaffney, D., &
Budin, W. (in press, 2008). Bullying of
nurses in the workplace: A preliminary
study for developing personal and
organizational strategies for the
transformation of hostile to healthy
workplace environments. Journal of
Professional Nursing.
Vessey, J., & DeMarco, R.F. (in press,
2008). The undergraduate research
fellows program: A unique model to
promote engagement in research.
Journal of Professional Nursing.
DeMarco, R., Roberts, S.J., Norris, A.E.,
& McCurry, M. (in press, 2008). The
development of the nurse workplace
Scale (NWS): Self-advocating behaviors
and beliefs in the professional
jane flanagan
Flanagan, J. (In press). Patient and
nurse experiences of theory-based
nursing care in a pre-surgical clinic.
Nursing Science Quarterly.
Abdallah, L., Remington, R., Devereaux
Melillo, K. and Flanagan, J., (Accepted
for publication for October). Nursing
Management of the Nursing Home
Patient on Antipsychotic Medications.
Nursing 2008.
Flanagan, J. (In Press). Ethical issues
for advanced practice nurses caring for
the adult health population. In: Grace,
P. Nursing Ethics and Professional
Responsibility in Advanced Practice.
Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Flanagan, J. & Jones, D. (In
Press) Evaluation of the Advanced
Practice Nurse Cost Efficiency,
Accomplishments, Trends and Future
Development. In: Joel, L. Advanced
Practice Nursing: Essentials for Role
Development. PA: F.A. Davis.
susan gennaro
Gennaro, S., Raftery, N., Campbell,
D., Shults, J. (2008). Cervical and
vaginal cytokine determinations in
pregnant women: Methodologic issues.
Biological Research in Nursing. 9, 215222.
Stringer, L., Gennaro, S., Deatrick, J.,
Slade, S. (2008). Symptoms described
by African American women evaluated
for preterm labor. JOGNN, 37, 196-202.
Gennaro, S. Naidoo, S, Berthold, P.
(2008). Oral health and HIV/AIDS.
MCN. 33, 50-57.
Desanayke, A., Gennaro, S., HendriksMunoz, K., Nok, C. (2008) Maternal
periodontal disease pregnancy and
neonatal complications. MCN.33, 45-49.
Biesecker, B., Gennaro, S., Douglas,
S.D. (In press). Immunologic
Disorders. In Gleicher, N. Principles
and practice of medical therapy in
pregnancy. Norwalk, CT. Appleton &
Lang.
Gennaro, S., Shults, J., Garry, D. (in
press). Stress and preterm labor and
birth in Black women. JOGNN.
pamela j. grace
Grace, P. J. (in press, 2009). Nursing
Ethics and Professional Responsibility
in Advanced Practice. Sudbury, MA:
Jones and Bartlett.
Grace, P. J. & Hardt, E. (in press,
2008). Ethical Issues: When a patient
refuses assistance. American Journal of
Nursing, 108(8), 73-75
Haggerty, L. A.,& Grace, P.J. (in press,
2008). Clinical wisdom: The essential
component of ‘good’ nursing care.
Journal of Professional Nursing.
Grace, P. J. (2008). Genetics, aging,
and primary Care: Ethical implications
for clinicians. In C.Y. Read, R.C. Green,
& M.A. Smyer (Eds). Aging,
Biotechnology and the Future.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press. Chapter 17.
WilIis. D. G., Grace, P.J., & Roy, C.
(2008). A central unifying focus for the
discipline: Facilitating humanization,
meaning, choice, quality of life, and
healing in living and dying. Advances in
Nursing Science, 31(1):E28-E40
new books by
connell school
faculty
katherine gregory
Gregory, K.E. (2008). Clinical predictors
of necrotizing enterocolitis in
premature infants. Nursing Research,
57 (4), 260-270.
allyssa harris
Harris, A. (in press). Practice week at
a glance: Director of Operations and
Advanced Practice Nurse. Nursing
Forum.
Harris, A. (March, 2008). Poster
Presentation: Factors that Influence
African American Women’s
Contraceptive Decision-making, An
intergenerational Perspective. 2008
Eastern Nursing Research Society 20th
Annual Scientific Session, Philadelphia,
PA.
Pam Grace: Nursing Ethics and Professional
Responsibility in Advanced Practice
Harris, A. (May, 2008). Poster
Presentation: Factors that Influence
African American Women’s
Contraceptive Decision-making, An
intergenerational Perspective. Sigma
Theta Tau, Alpha Chi Chapter’s Spring
Research Program at Boston College,
Chestnut Hill, MA.
Harris, A. (June, 2008). Presentation:
Factors that Influence African
American Women’s Contraceptive
Decision-making, An intergenerational
Perspective. Association of Black
Nursing Faculty, Inc. 21st Annual
Meeting & Scientific Conference
Celebration, Montreal, Canada.
Cathy Read: Aging, Biotechnology, & the Future
fall/winter 2008
13
faculty publications
june a. horowitz
Vessey, J. A. & Horowitz, A. (in press).
Helping children who are being teased
or bullied. Nursing Spectrum.
Vessey, J. A., & Horowitz, J. A. (in
press). Relationship between teasing
and bullying: A theoretical model.
Journal of Pediatric Nursing.
Vessey, J. A., Horowitz, J. A. Duffy, M.,
& Carlson K. L. (in press). Psychometric
evaluation of the CATS: ChildAdolescent Teasing Scale. Journal of
School Health.
susan kelly-weeder
Kelly-Weeder, S. (in press, 2008) Binge
Drinking in College Age Women.
Journal of the American Academy of
Nurse Practitioners.
ellen k. mahoney
Barron, A.-M., Coakley, A.B.,
Fitzgerald, E.M., & Mahoney, E.K.
(2008). Promoting the integration of
therapeutic touch in nursing practice on
an inpatient oncology and bone marrow
transplant unit. International Journal for
Human Caring, 12, 81-89.
Larkin, M.E., Capasso, V.A., Chen, C-L.,
Mahoney, E.K., Hazard, B., Cagliero,
E., & Nathan, D.M. (2008). Measuring
psychological insulin resistance:
Barriers to insulin use. The Diabetes
Educator, 34, 511-517.
Shen, C., Smyer, M.A., Mahoney, K.J.,
Loughlin, D.M., Simon-Pusinowitz, L.,
& Mahoney, E.K. (2008). Does mental
illness affect consumer direction of
community-based care? Lessons from
the Arkansas Cash and Counseling
Program. The Gerontologist, 48, 93-104.
joyce pulcini
DeMarco, R., Pulcini, J., Haggerty, L.
Tang, T. (2009, In Press). The Doctorate
in Nursing Practice: A survey
14 Boston College Nursing VOICE
of Massachusetts nurses. Journal of
Professional Nursing.
Tourse, R., Mooney, J. F., ShindulRothschild, J., Prince, J., Pulcini, J.,
Platt, S., Savranski, H. (in press, 2008).
The University/Community Partnership:
Transdisciplinary Course Development.
The Journal of Interprofessional Care.
Boynton, R., Dunn, B, Stephens, G,
Pulcini, J. (In Press, 2009). Manual
of Ambulatory Pediatrics (6th Ed).
Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.
Pulcini, J., Sheetz, A., DeSisto, M.
(2008). Establishing a primary care
practice-based research network for
school nurses: The Massachusetts
Experience. Journal of School Health, 78
(3), 172-174.
catherine read
Underwood, P. C., & Read, C.Y. (in
press). Genetic association studies
in nursing practice and scholarship.
Journal of Nursing Scholarship.
Read, C.Y., Green, R.C., & Smyer, M.A.
(Eds.), (2008). Aging, Biotechnology,
& the Future. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Read, C.Y., Roberts, J.S., Linnenbringer,
E. & Green, R.C. (2008). Genetic testing
for Alzheimer’s disease: The REVEAL
Study. In C.Y. Read, R. C. Green, & M.
A. Smyer (Eds.), Aging, Biotechnology,
& the Future. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
sr. callista roy
Roy, C. (2008). Roy Adaptation Model
(3rd ed.). Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle
River, NJ.
Barone, S., Roy, C., & Frederickson,
K. (2008). Instruments Used in Roy
Adaptation Model Based Research:
Review, Critique and Further Directions.
Nursing Science Quarterly.
Magee, T. and Roy, C. (2008).
Predicting School Age Behavior
Problems: The Role of Early Childhood
Risk Factors. Pediatric Nursing, 34 (1),
37-43.
O’Connor, A.B. & Roy, C. (2008).
Electric Power Plant Emissions and
Public Health. American Journal of
Nursing, 108 (2), 62-70.
Roy, C. (2008). Adversity and Theory:
The Broad Picture. Nursing Science
Quarterly. 21(2), 138-139.
Willis, D., Grace, P., & Roy, C. (2008).
A Central Unifying Focus for the
Discipline: Facilitating Humanization,
Meaning, Choice, Quality of Life
and Healing in Living and Dying.
Advances in Nursing Science.
31(1). available online only: www.
advancesinnursingscience.com
mary lou siefert
Siefert, M.L., Williams, A., Dowd, M.F.,
Chappel-Aiken, L., McCorkle, R. (in
press). The caregiving experience in a
racially diverse sample of cancer family
caregivers. CANCER NURSING: An
International Journal for Cancer Care.
McCorkle, R., Dowd, M., Ercolano,
Schulman-Green, D., Williams, A.,
Siefert, M.L., Steiner, J., Schwartz, P. (in
press). Effects of a nursing intervention
on quality of life outcomes in postsurgical women with gynecological
cancers. Psycho-Oncology.
colleen simonelli
Wolfe, BE & Simonelli MC. (2008).
Eating disorders in pregnancy. In
PJ Adams Hillard Ed. The 5-Minute
Obstetrics and Gynecology Consult.
Lippincott Williams and Wilkins,
Philadelphia, PA.
pamela terreri
Grace,P. & Terreri,P. (2008). Nursing
Ethics and Advanced Practice:
Psychiatric and Mental Health Issues.
In P.J. Grace(Ed.), Nursing ethics and
professional responsibility in advanced
practice(pp.315-336) Sudbury, MA:
Jones and Bartlett.
judith a. vessey
Allen, P. J., Vessey, J. A., & Shapiro,
N. (in press, 2008). Primary care of
the child with a chronic condition (5th
edition).
Selekman, J.. & Vessey, J. A. (in press).
The school and children with chronic
conditions. In P. J. Allen, J. A. Vessey, &
N. Shapiro (Eds.), Primary care of the
child with a chronic condition (5th ed.).
St. Louis: Mosby-Yearbook.
Vessey, J. A., & Sullivan, B. (in
press). Chronic conditions and child
development (pp. 23-43). In P. J. Allen,
J. A. Vessey, & N. Shapiro (Eds.),
Primary care of the child with a chronic
condition (5th ed.). St. Louis: MosbyYearbook.
Vessey, J. A. & Brown, S. (in press).
Financing care for children with chronic
conditions. In P. J. Allen, J. A. Vessey, &
N. Shapiro (Eds.), Primary care of the
child with a chronic condition (5th ed.).
St. Louis: Mosby-Yearbook.
Vessey, J. A., DeMarco, F. F., Gaffney,
D. & Budin, W. (in press). Bullying of
nurses in the workplace: a preliminary
study for developing personal and
organizational strategies for the
transformation of hostile to health
workplace enviromnents. Journal of
Professional Nursing.
Vessey, J. A. & DeMarco, R. F. (in
press). The Undergraduate Research
Fellows Program: A unique model to
promote engagement in research.
Journal of Professional Nursing.
Vessey, J. A. & Horowitz, J. (in
press). A conceptual framework for
understanding teasing and bullying.
Journal of Pediatric Nursing.
the inside view on
forensics in the media
Vessey, J. A., Horowitz, J. A, Duffy, M.,
& Carlson, K. L. (2008). Psychometric
evaluation of the CATS: ChildAdolescent Teasing Scale. Journal of
School Health, 78, 344-350.
danny g. willis
Willis, D. G. (2008). Meanings in adult
male victims’ experiences of hate crime
and its aftermath. Issues in Mental
Health Nursing, 29(6), 567-584.
Willis, D. G., Grace, P. J., & Roy, C.
(2008). A central unifying focus for the
discipline: Facilitating humanization,
meaning, choice, quality of life, and
healing in living and dying. Advances in
Nursing Science, 31(1), E28-E40.
barbara wolfe
Wolfe, B. E. & Simonelli, M. C. (2008).
Eating disorders in pregnancy. In P. J.
Hillard (Ed.), The 5-Minute OB/GYN
Clinical Consult, 445-446. Philadelphia,
PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Wolfe, B. E., Talley, S. L., & Smith, A.
(2008). Psychopharmacologic first-line
strategies in the treatment of major
depression and psychosis: A survey of
APNS. Journal of American Psychiatric
Nurses Association, 14 (2), 144-151.
9
Wed. March 25, 200
4–6 pm
Robsham Theater
FEATURING
James T. Clemente
FBI Agent
Kelly Ann Martin
TV Producer,
Forensic Files
Andrew Wilder
TV Writer
and Producer,
Criminal Minds
ww w.bc.e du /
forensics
Smith, A.T., & Wolfe, B. E. (2008).
Amenorrhea as a Diagnostic Criterion
for Anorexia Nervosa: A review of the
evidence and implications for practice.
Journal of the American Psychiatric
Nurses Association, 14 (3), 209-215
Wolfe. B. E. Smith, A. T., & Cullinan, D.
L. (in press). Eating disorders. In P. J.
Allen & J. A. Vessey (Eds.), Primary care
of the child with a chronic condition
(5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
Sponsored by the Connell School of
Nursing and the Biology Department
fall/winter 2008
15
answering
the call
nursing leadership
Dean Susan
Gennaro points
to Jesuit mission,
commitment
to research
as key to her
decision to join
Boston College
by Joshua J. Jensen
16 Boston College Nursing VOICE
fall/winter 2008 17
T his past July, Susan Gennaro stepped into the dean
role at the Connell School of Nursing. Gennaro
comes to Boston College with a strong record of
achievement and an international reputation as a leader and
innovator in the field of nursing. Her research in perinatal
nursing has received funding from the National Institutes
of Nursing Research and the Office of Women’s Health at
the National Institutes of Health. Gennaro is the editor of
the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, one of the country’s
most respected and influential nursing journals.
By all accounts, Gennaro didn’t need to come to Boston
College. She was the Florence and William Downs Professor
of Nursing Research at the College of Nursing at New York
University, where she had been since 2006 following nearly
20 years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania.
At NYU, she had an ideal platform to conduct her clinical
research, mentor faculty and students, and contribute to the
nursing profession in meaningful and important ways. She
and her husband, William Fehder—a PhD-prepared nurse
anesthetist and now clinical associate professor at Boston
College—are both native New Yorkers, and by all accounts,
enjoyed living in New York and rooting for their beloved
Yankees.
What would drive Gennaro to uproot herself and move
to Red Sox Nation, not to mention taking on the pressures
and challenges of life as a dean? Boston College. “I know
I wouldn’t have left to go be the dean anywhere else but
Boston College,” says Gennaro. “I was doing my research. I
had just gotten good news about a grant. Life was great. The
only reason that I considered Boston College was because
it felt like it was completing a circle. Coming to Boston has
been a homecoming in a kind of holistic, spiritual, and
intellectual way.”
In making the decision to come to Boston College,
Gennaro asked herself, “Why do you have the talents you
have? What do you do when people are saying these are the
talents that could help you to really give back in the most
important ways?” She notes, “It would have been almost
sacrilegious to say ‘I hear the call, but I’m not going to
answer it.’ This felt like it was meant to be.”
a path rooted in jesuit ideals
Gennaro traces her path to Boston College back to the days
before she was even considering a career in nursing. “My
mother was a nurse, my aunt was a nurse, and my other
18 Boston College Nursing VOICE
aunt was a nurse, so I decided that I was never going to be a
nurse,” she says.
She went to Le Moyne College, majored in English,
graduated and worked on Wall Street. It was then that she
started asking herself if she should be doing more. “I starting thinking, ‘what am I doing here? What difference am I
making? How am I helping?’ I had gone to a Jesuit college
and I had been well formed I guess!”
Gennaro credits her experience with Jesuit education as
leading her to a career in nursing, and eventually to the connection she felt with Boston College. “Boston College is a
place that has a value system I really believe in,” she says.
Gennaro recalls that in her interview with Boston College
President Father Leahy, she asked him, “If three years from
now somebody told you the best decision you ever made
was hiring that new dean at the School of Nursing, what
would he or she have done that would make you nod, ‘yes
that’s true’?”
She says that Father Leahy spoke about educating and
graduating students who were the best nurses, who provided the best care, and who were the kind of nurses anyone
would want for their own family members. She says she had
expected him to say that he wanted to graduate nurses who
could produce research. She was heartened that although he
understands and respects nursing as a science, his answer
to her question wasn’t just focused on research funding. “It
was about producing the best for society. It was holistic.”
Gennaro says she realized then that, “Boston College is a
place where people truly believe in the importance in both
doing good and doing well. It isn’t just about doing well.”
an approach fit for a dean
Nancy Van Devanter, an associate professor at New York
University who has collaborated with Gennaro, sees
Gennaro as a strong fit for the Connell School dean position. “Susan is actually someone who was born to be a
dean; she has every quality needed to be a great one. Susan
is an outstanding scholar, a visionary leader, and a gifted
and very creative administrator. Most important of all, she
just has a terrific sense of humor.
“One of the attributes that I really admire in Susan is
her ability to work with a broad range of people, and in
particular her ability to work with people in clinical and
community settings. For example, she and I are evaluating
a program that encourages breastfeeding among women
in a local hospital here in New York. When we go into that
environment, Susan sits down with nurses and other clinical staff, and is perfectly at home. People pick up on the
fact that she is very down to earth, which is not true of all
researchers. Susan demonstrates her respect for clinical
staff and the work they do.”
Van Devanter emphasizes that this authentic approach
is pervasive across all of Gennaro’s work. “Susan has done
truly extraordinary work at NYU in the recruitment of
Dean Gennaro was welcomed to Boston at a BCsponsored reception held in conjunction with the annual conference of the National Association of Hispanic
Nurses (NAHN), where she was introduced by Boston
College Provost Bert Garza and NAHN president
Norma Rogers. Left: Antonia Villarruel of the University
of Michigan School of Nursing congratulates Gennaro
on her appointment. Above: Mary Lou de Leon Siantz of
the University of Pennsylvania talks with Boston College
Provost Bert Garza and his wife Yolanda.
fall/winter 2008 19
minority students and faculty. The reason she has been
successful is that this work is true to her vision of nursing
and to her commitment to addressing health disparities
in minority populations. She understands that in order to
solve some of these very large problems, we need to engage
a diverse team, including people with real-life experience in
these issues.”
Gennaro credits her upbringing for her down-to-earth
sensibility. “My father’s family were recent immigrants. He
had to give up high school to help with the family. He quit
so that his sister could finish high school. He was an auto
mechanic, a very successful small businessman, and wanted
more for his children and more for his daughters. That was
very big. There was that sense of living the legacy there.”
Gennaro wins points with her colleagues not just
for her style, but also the substance of her work. Janet
Deatrick, who worked with Gennaro at the University of
Pennsylvania, noted, “When [Gennaro] left here, I began to
fully grasp how much work she really did. Susan is one of
the hardest working people I know in academia. She always
asks the tough questions, makes the tough decisions. She
doesn’t let anything slide by.
“I think of the way she advocated for students as director of the doctoral program,” Deatrick continues. “If she
thought a student needed a second consideration on an
issue, she was always the first to say that. On the other
hand, if she thought the faculty needed advocacy, she would
do the same. It was never a popularity contest or calculated.
I think you can look forward to a very productive, very principled kind of leadership from Susan.”
a history of leadership in nursing
research
Of course, there is plenty of work to be done in healthcare,
and Gennaro sees nursing and in particular the research
that nurses do as central to addressing these needs. “So
many of the problems we face are issues of chronic healthcare. Even infectious diseases like HIV have become
chronic, and many of the challenges have to do with behavior. We like magic pills in this country. There aren’t magic
pills for all of those things. The systems that are going to be
the most successful are systems that really help people manage their lives in very different ways.”
Gennaro’s perspective was shaped by her own work as
a Lamaze-certified childbirth educator, where she spent
20 Boston College Nursing VOICE
maintaining a work/life balance
Dean Gennaro, Graduate Program Assistant MaryBeth Crowley, and Associate Dean of
Graduate Programs Pat Tabloski at the 2008 graduate student orientation
a lot of time helping women prepare for breast-feeding.
She recalls reading an article during that time in which a
researcher reported the results of a study where she compared the results of women doing all the things that had
been advised to prepare for breastfeeding on one breast, and
doing nothing on the other breast. Gennaro said she was
surprised to learn that all the time she was spending telling
women to do certain things actually made no difference.
She had an epiphany about her work and the importance of
research.
“It was clear to me that I could be very involved in clinical
practice, but if I wasn’t testing what it was that was being
done, if I wasn’t generating new knowledge, I was just
spending a lot of time on hocus pocus,” she says.
That experience informed her view of research and the
particular contributions of nurses. “There’s a point at which
you can do something one way because we have always
done so, but it doesn’t mean that’s the best way. If you go
other places in the world and they do things entirely differently and people aren’t dying because they’re not doing x, y,
or z, you have to think to yourself, ‘what’s the difference?’ It
makes you think a little more critically.
“Nursing research is unique. We are really trying to figure
out how to get people into care, and keep them in care. We
are helping people understand the changes they could make
that would positively impact their lives. We have a lot to contribute in big ways. Nurses really do understand culture and
all of those other things that make a big difference.”
Although she maintains high standards for herself, her students, and her colleagues, Gennaro’s colleagues praise the
importance she places on having a balanced life, for herself
and for others. Connell School Assistant Professor Angela
Amar recalls being a doctoral student at the University of
Pennsylvania, where Gennaro was her dissertation advisor. “I told Dr. Gennaro not to worry about my progress
because I was going to bring my work with me when I took
my son, Kirby, to Disney World. Susan looked me in the
eye and said, ‘You only get to bring Kirby to Disney World
once while he’s seven. Don’t bring your work.’” Despite her
many, many professional accomplishments—and there are
many—she values people, and relationships, and living.”
Van Devanter agrees. “The other part of Susan that I
appreciate—and this is important for a dean—is that she
has balance in her life. She has extensive family and friends
that she is very close to. It is important for somebody in
this kind of position to have priorities other than the job. It
keeps you real, keeps you human, and makes you a better
leader.”
How does Gennaro keep up her high standards and her
commitment to work-life balance? She explains, “There
are only 24 hours in a day so we have to have efficient systems that help faculty not be overwhelmed. It is important
for them to be able to say, ‘I still have a family that loves
me,’ or whatever particular structure is important to their
life. So how do you make that happen? As dean, I think
you have to be a good steward of resources, time probably
being the biggest. We have to think about what work really
helps us to our outcomes, and what’s really busy work. I
have lots of ideas about how that’s going to happen here at
Boston College, and how we’re going to help people to be
really productive scholars and excellent teachers.”
Since she arrived on campus, and indeed before she
arrived, Gennaro has been having critical conversations
with university officials, colleagues in the nursing community, and Connell School faculty and staff. She’s been
asking the tough questions, learning what works well,
what is valued, and where improvements can be made.
“I’ve really watched a lot of leaders put themselves out
there, only to turn around and realize that nobody was
behind them. I don’t want to do that. For me, this is about
building a community. That might mean we have to go
places that I don’t particularly want to go, and that’s okay.
I’ve been wrong a lot in my life, but I’m really good about
continuing to collect data and informing decision-making.
We can try things that might not work; that’s not a problem. Better to try something that doesn’t work, than to not
try at all.”
For now, Gennaro is more than content to set the stage
for positive developments. “You can’t plant the corn, as
Father Leahy I’m sure would tell us, until the ground is
prepared. What I’m doing is tilling, make sure I’m getting rid of the stones and the roots so that as opportunities
arise, we are in a place where if we plant, we’ll have better
growth. I have to worry about whether there will be water
if there’s a drought, I have to worry if we get the equipment that we need. We have to have the backhoe. I know
nothing about farming but I’ve been hearing wonderful
examples!
“Mentorship is part of my role as me, so whether it’s
‘the dean’ or its ‘Susan Gennaro,’ part of what I have
enjoyed most in my life has been to opportunity to help
people, and then watching them succeed and grow. I sit
there and think, ‘ I used the skills God gave me to make a
difference today.”
Gennaro’s colleagues echo this. “Susan started pre- and
post-doctoral training programs for students at Penn
that were funded continuously for 10 years by the NIH.”
Deatrick explains, “These programs have made a tremendous difference in people’s lives.”
Wendy Budin, director of nursing research at NYU
Medical Center, notes, “I sincerely treasure our friendship
and although I am happy for her and for my friends at
Boston College, I am going to miss her sorely. Susan is not
only a brilliant scholar, but a genuine, caring and dynamic
leader who is well respected by her students and peers.”
Her former doctoral student confers: “At every crossroad
or venture,” Amar says, “Susan shares pearls of wisdom—
many that she passes along from her mentors—to help
you out on the journey. Through the heartwarming and
usually funny stories, Susan builds lasting relationships
and provides mentorship, support and guidance. The lists
of her colleagues, mentors, protégées, and friends are
endless. Her impressive curriculum vitae—with multiple
pages of external funding, publications and scholarly
presentations—will certainly serve the Connell School
well, but it is Susan’s interior persona that is the true gem
Boston College has acquired.”
fall/winter 2008 21
on campus
MAKING IT BETTER
THE CONNELL SCHOOL
INTRODUCES ADVANCED PRACTICE
FORENSIC NURSING by Joshua J. Jensen
In the spring of 2007, Assistant Professor Angela Amar
and Clinical Assistant Professor Holly Fontenot attended a
conference focused on domestic violence. Afterwards, they
began a casual conversation about the connections between
their violence prevention work, the work of their colleagues,
and how this work could fit into a forensic nursing program
at the Connell School of Nursing. For many junior faculty—
Amar was in her first year at Boston College at the time—the
conversation would have ended there, their collective time
consumed by their teaching and research obligations.
22 Boston College Nursing VOICE
fall/winter 2008 23
Instead, Amar and Fontenot kept talking and also brought
others into the conversation, including Connell School
Professor Ann Burgess, a pioneer of forensic nursing. In
short time, they pulled together an impressive coalition
of Boston-area community leaders across a range of fields
related to forensics. Amar channeled this energy and expertise into a grant proposal that she submitted to the Health
Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), part of
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Amar
asked HRSA for funding to start an advanced practice
forensic nursing specialty at Boston College.
The story that Amar told in her proposal was straightforward but compelling: given increasing violence, coupled
with an increasing understanding of its physical and
mental health impacts, there is a clear need for advanced
practice nurses who are able to address the broad health
needs of individuals who have experienced violence, as
well as assist individuals throughout the legal process with
evidence collection, forensic documentation, and court testimony. In short, there is an emerging need for advanced
practice forensic nurses.
As part of their proposal, Amar and her team outlined an
advanced practice forensic nursing curriculum that would
be available both as an additional specialty certificate for
advanced practice nurses and as an additional specialty concentration in the master’s program. Their hard work was
rewarded with a nod to move forward from HRSA, creating
Forensics requires practitioners
who are able to build connections across organizations and
professional identities. The
forensics advisory board is a
diverse group made up of
leaders in forensic science
and related fields, convened
together to help students
build skills and offer a strong
professional community from
the beginning of the program.
24 Boston College Nursing VOICE
an advanced practice specialty in forensic nursing for the
Connell School, which will formally launch in 2009.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORENSIC NURSING FIELD
The development of Boston College’s advanced practice
forensic specialty comes at a point when the field of forensic nursing is still relatively early in its development. The
first forensic nurses in clinical practice were sexual assault
nurse examiners (SANEs), a role that came about in the
mid to late 1970s to address the needs of women who were
the victims of rape and sexual assault. At this time, legal
evidence was collected in the emergency rooms where
women received treatment, and nurses were often the only
female healthcare professionals. These nurses developed
SANE programs to train other nurses for this role, creating
the first forensic nurses.
Since the 1970s, the scope of forensic nursing practice
has expanded. According to the International Association
of Forensic Nurses, forensic nurses work with individuals experiencing a broad range of interpersonal violence
including domestic violence, sexual assault, child and elder
abuse and neglect, physiological and psychological abuse,
occult and religious violence, and human trafficking.
Forensic nurses work in such settings as forensic mental
health, correctional nursing, legal nurse consulting, emergency and trauma services, public health and safety, and
death examination. In short, wherever nurses can combine
THE ADVISORY BOARD
CHAIR:
Lucia Zuniga, RN, SANE
Director, Massachusetts Sexual Assault
Nurse Examiner Program
Kevin Becker, PsyD
Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School; Director,
Institute for Trauma & Crisis, Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Senior
Partner, Organizational Resilience
International, LLC
Judith Bradford, PhD
Director, Center for Population Research
in LGBT Health; Co-Chair, Fenway
Institute
their healthcare expertise with a legal component, they have
done so under the broad umbrella of forensic nursing.
Advanced practice forensic nursing is an even more
recent development, with certification as an advanced practice forensic nurse currently under development. Boston
College is on the leading edge of this development, with
only a handful of these advanced practice programs offered
in the United States. Advanced practice promises to take
the field of forensic nursing to the next level, giving nurses
the skills and tools to participate in clinical research, and
use existing research to impact their own practice as forensic nurses. These nurses will have the skills necessary to
address the broader health needs of victims of violence.
Forensic science at Boston College
While advanced practice nursing forensics may be new
to Boston College, the study of forensic nursing here is
well established, rooted in the leading-edge work of Ann
Wolbert Burgess, a professor at the Connell School since
2001. Burgess’s relationship to Boston College goes back
even further however, to 1972, with her early victimology
research in collaboration with Boston College sociologist
Professor Lynda Lytle Holmstrom. This work would lead
Burgess down a path that eventually would form the scientific foundation of the field of forensic nursing.
Burgess has continued to lead research in forensic
science. Currently, she is co-primary investigator on a col-
Michael Burns, MD
QUYNH DANG
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School; Co-Director,
Division of Medical Toxicology, Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center;
Vice Chair, Network Development
in Emergency Medicine for Harvard
Medical Faculty Physicians
Refugee and Immigrant Safety and
Empowerment Programs (RISE),
MA Department of Public Health
Andrea Cabral, JD
Executive Office of Public Safety &
Security, Violence Against Women
Act Grant Program
Sheriff, Norfolk County
JEAN MARIE CARROLL, JD
First District Attorney,
Norfolk County
Sue Chandler, MPH, MSW
Director, Community Advocacy
Program, Center for Community Health
Education, Research, & Service
David Deakin, JD
District Attorney, Suffolk County
Diane DeAngelis
Janet Fine, MS
Executive Director, Massachusetts
Office for Victim Assistance
laborative grant project with the Justice Resource Institute
and Villanova University. The purpose of this two-year project is to advance empirical research related to combating
online sexual victimization of children and adolescents and
to improve Internet safety strategies.
Burgess has also been an innovator in the teaching of
forensics, leading a number of popular undergraduate
courses on the subject. Students from across the university give Burgess’s courses high marks, in part due to her
ability to bring concepts alive through real-world examples
drawn from her own experience as an expert witness on
countless high profile court cases, including the recent
Duke lacrosse case, as well as the infamous Menendez
brothers trial. In addition, Burgess has leveraged her work
with the FBI, bringing FBI agents into the classroom to discuss their forensics work.
Burgess continues to innovate in the classroom. Most
recently, she collaborated with faculty from Boston
College’s biology department to offer a “forensic science
lab” course, where students use equipment and techniques
from the field of forensics to process and evaluate evidence
from mock crime scenes. Burgess has also developed
courses with the Connell School’s continuing education
program, including courses in forensic science, forensic
mental health, and victimology. A recent addition is a oneday “forensics summer camp” for practicing nurses.
Burgess is thrilled to see young faculty building off the
Joellen Hawkins,
RNC, PhD, FAAN, NAP
Professor Emeritus, William F. Connell
School of Nursing; Nursing Editor,
Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary
Donald R. Hayes,
MSFS, D-ABC
Director, Crime Laboratory Unit,
Boston Police Department
Sgt. Pi Heseltine
Susan Love
Massachusetts Department of Public
Health, Disabled/Elderly Services
Mary Neal, LCSW
Regional Manager,
Elder Protective Services
Veronica Rybeck, LCSW
Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry,
Harvard University
Massachusetts State Trooper
Francine Sherman, JD
Marilee Kenney Hunt
Principal, MKH Consulting
Director of the Juvenile Rights
Advocacy Project, Boston College
Law School
Gail Lenehan, PhD, RN
Lydia watts
Visiting Scholar, ER Nurse
Executive Director,
Victim Rights Law Center
fall/winter 2008 25
foundation that she has created through her research and
teaching. “When my work on rape trauma syndrome was
published, I never dreamed that 35 years later there would
be enough research to provide graduate students with an
evidence-based curriculum in forensic nursing,” she says.
“Yet the time has come and the Connell School is ready for
graduate students who will continue to advance forensic
science and forensic nursing practice.”
Building connections in the community
As a relatively young profession, advanced practice forensic
nursing is not something that is familiar to the broader
public. While forensic nurses may have an ideal skill set to
meet the needs of individuals and communities experiencing violence, for many, it is not yet second nature to turn to
forensic nurses for this expertise.
Aware of this challenge and determined to address it
proactively, Amar has developed a collaborative, community-based strategy that has the potential to meet the needs of
forensic nursing students, and perhaps as importantly, be
a catalyst in Boston to integrate advanced practice nurses
into the fabric of forensics science and practice. Simple yet
bold, Amar approached an impressive list of community
leaders, building an advisory committee that reads like a
“who’s who of forensic leaders” in the Boston area (see
page 23 for a full list).
To head up this group, Amar tapped Lucia Zuniga, director of the Massachusetts Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner
(SANE) Program. Zuniga sees many benefits in a strong
collaborative relationship between the SANE program and
Boston College and is personally excited by the opportunity.
In a letter of support for the program, she indicated a particular excitement for the opportunity to collaborate with
Amar in the development of the forensic nursing specialty.
Violence prevention: Amar's personal drive
While Amar has always been committed to working collaboratively and across disciplines, she came to forensics and
violence prevention work as many do, as a witness to the
suffering of others.
She relates an eye-opening story that transformed her
thinking about interpersonal violence. “Learning about it
in nursing school in the late 1980s, I couldn’t put a name
or face to violence against women. Today the memory book
of my mind is filled with names, faces and stories that have
26 Boston College Nursing VOICE
made intimate partner violence a personal concern for me.”
One of those faces belongs to a patient Amar met while
working in admissions in the psychiatric unit of a hospital.
“She could barely look me in the eye as she recounted
how badly she wanted to run into oncoming traffic and kill
herself. One side of her face was swollen. She told me that
her on-again off-again boyfriend hit her. ‘Nothing new,’
she said. This was the first person who ever told me so
much detail. A young black woman—we could have been
the same age—was sitting across from me discussing life
events I couldn’t even fathom.”
To Amar, even more unexpected was the reaction of
colleagues to this experience. “I was stunned to have a
colleague tell me that she had been experiencing physical
violence from her boyfriend, soon to be husband, for a few
years. My mouth dropped open and I asked, ‘How come I
never knew?’ She replied, ‘Well, you never asked.’”
Through her own research, Amar would come to realize
that these experiences are far from unusual. Intimate partner violence is a hidden problem, often because the victim
fears blame or being looked down upon.
“My own research interests derive from this place of trying to make sense of a social problem that affected women
I knew from my professional practice and personal life,”
says Amar. “Armed with an understanding that anyone may
walk into a violent relationship but getting out of it isn’t as
easy, I set out to understand more about the experience of
partner violence and its effects on health.”
Amar’s research trajectory would lead to her current
work to understand what motivates women who are
experience violence in a dating relationship to seek help.
“Realizing that young women experience dating violence
and do not report it to helping professionals inspired me to
study help seeking. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior,
I have explored the attitudes and beliefs associated with
reporting dating violence. I hope to evolve my research
trajectory into the development and testing of intervention
programs. I would love nothing more than to ‘put myself
out of a job’ by developing an effective prevention strategy.”
For the moment, it doesn’t look likely that Amar will
find herself out of work, as violence continues to plague
our society. However, through teaching and research
innovation, it is a sure bet that forensic nurses will do
transformational work that improves the lives of those
experiencing violence.
The advanced practice nursing forensic
specialty is designed to be completed
in one year of full-time study, either
as a post-master’s certificate for those
who have already completed a master’s degree in nursing, or as a second
specialty concentration for master’s
students. Students will complete 500
clinical hours in addition to classroom
work. Courses include:
Forensics I: Fundamentals of Forensics in Nursing
and Health Care
Examines the historical, sociopolitical and cultural perspectives of
personal, professional, and societal issues related to victimization
and perpetration of violent crime. Students examine the interface of
the health care, social services, and legal systems in providing care to
victims and perpetrators. Emerging roles in forensic nursing practice
and issues unique to such practice will be explored.
Forensics II: Psychosocial and Legal Aspects of
Forensic Practice in Nursing and Health Care
Provides a comprehensive examination of the behavior, emotional
responses, and cognitive decision making of both victims and
perpetrators of a crime. Students examine the ethical and legal
responsibilities for health care providers and health care agencies
from both a legal and ethical perspective with special emphasis on
sociocultural context of victimization and perpetration.
Forensics I: Practicum
Prepares students to provide comprehensive care to victims, their
families, and perpetrators in settings within the health care or criminal justice systems. Students will engage in beginning application of
clinical subspecialty and functional role concepts.
Forensics III: Forensic Nursing and Health Care of
Vulnerable Populations
Focuses on the role(s) of forensic nurses in providing assessment,
diagnosis, treatment, and advocacy services to patients. Students
will learn how to understand, organize, and respond to and prevent
violence and abuse. The course focuses forensic role behaviors in violence against women, elder abuse, and forensic psychiatric-mental
health. Students will be prepared to advance forensic nursing science
in healthcare application.
Criminal Law and Scientific Procedures for Evidence
Collection in Nursing and Health Care
Provides a broad overview of the legal process and the roles of the
lawyer, forensic nurse, and forensic specialist and the rules of conduct that guide them. Students are introduced to definitions and
classifications of crime and their application to the criminal justice
system. Students will examine principles, concepts, purposes and the
nurse’s role regarding substantive criminal law.
Forensics II: Practicum
Prepares students to integrate advanced knowledge of forensic care
in assessing and managing the symptoms of those experiencing
violent crime as victims, family members, and perpetrators within
the forensic care focus. Complex psychological, ethical, social and
spiritual issues and emotional reactions will be the focus of the clinical practicum.
fall/winter 2008 27
profile
student VOICE
BEYOND
PHYSICAL HEALING
Carla Boudreau
SUPPORTING THE
RESEARCH MISSION
Pilgrimage to Lourdes
How a grants manager will
help the Connell School thrive
BY MARGARET BURKE ’08
BY KIRSTEN ERWIN
O
ur group of 400 was an interest-
peasant girl, St. Bernadette, in 1858.
Lourdes’ waters. As I assisted in sub-
ing sight each morning as we
Millions of pilgrims travel to the site
merging the women into the water, we
lined the Avenue du Paradis in front
each year to pray in the grotto where
joined in prayer as they kissed a statue
of our hotels in Lourdes. Each of us
Mary appeared and to bathe in the
of the Virgin Mary. Remarkably, while
was dressed in the traditional Order
healing spring water at the site of the
only five of the 40 women I assisted
of Malta uniform, which reflects the
apparition. This year, more than 8,000
spoke English (others spoke French,
prying with a purpose.” A sense of curi-
for Nursing Research, enthuses that
centuries that the order has devoted to
people from 42 countries participated
German, Italian, Korean, Spanish and
osity may be at the heart of the research
Boudreau is a welcome addition to the
seriously, so staffing the departments to
the Roman Catholic faith and service
in the 50th pilgrimage of the Order of
several other languages), I felt a power-
process, but when applying for the grant
school: “We are so fortunate to have Carla
support that goal is really a smart thing,”
to the poor and suffering. The women,
Malta to Lourdes, marking the 150th
ful spiritual connection with each one
funding to make it possible, expertise
working with us. Having someone with
says Boudreau. “I think it’s important to
attired in long black capes and simple
anniversary jubilee year of the appari-
of them. While some of the women
in federal regulations, institutional pro-
her level of experience with both Boston
have somebody who knows the business,
white veils, ventured to find water and
tions of Mary to St. Bernadette. Within
were completely able-bodied, others
cess, and financial management are also
College and grant management will
who knows the ins and outs, to be able to
blankets to stock our single passenger
this group were over 1500 sick and dis-
could not stand on their own. It was
required.
facilitate the grant-seeking process and
make things happen.”
blue chariots in which we transported
abled individuals who were sponsored
extremely humbling not to be able to
Enter Carla Boudreau.
help research to flourish at the Connell
Most of all, Boudreau is eager to be
the sick and disabled members of
by the knights and dames of Malta to
communicate with them verbally in
Boudreau is the eagerly awaited new
School. Carla’s contribution is part of a
part of the process of evolution at the
our group. The men, wearing black
make the pilgrimage. The knights and
many instances, but to be so entwined
grants manager at the Connell School,
plan to take our research productivity to
Connell School. “With the new dean,
uniforms with dignified black berets,
dames, along with the Order’s auxiliary
with them both physically and spiritu-
a role established with the goal of sup-
the next level.”
with Barbara Wolfe’s appointment
pulled their designated chariots and
and volunteers, travel each year with
ally during this powerful moment.
porting the research infrastructure and
Boudreau agrees that close interac-
searched along the avenue for their
the sick and disabled and their caregiv-
My experience in Lourdes has
providing assistance to faculty members
tion with faculty is integral to her role.
Research, and with this new grants man-
team’s flag, which waved proudly in
ers to render care and support to them
affirmed my belief in the difference
seeking funding for projects.
“In working at the department level,
ager position, there is a lot going on to
the air to serve as a point of orientation
during the pilgrimage.
that the care of the soul coupled with
I think it’s important to connect with
support the research mission,” she says.
W
riter and folklore researcher Zora
MBA from Northeastern, where she also
thing, unique in itself. As proposals go
Neale Hurston refers to research
received her undergraduate degree.
through the CERes committee, the fund-
as “formalized curiosity, poking and
“I’m so excited about the fact that it’s
Barbara Wolfe, director of the Center
ing rate continues to go up.
“The university is taking research very
as director of the Center for Nursing
amidst the crowd of hundreds of iden-
Each day we went as a group to dif-
the care of the body can make both for
a brand new position,” Boudreau says.
people, and I like making sure that we’re
“We have a lot of planning to do as well
tical black capes, white veils, and black
ferent Roman Catholic services—mass,
individuals who are sick and for their
“Together we can grow in every way nec-
working together as a team to get things
as guidelines to set in order to reach our
berets.
goals.
confession, anointing of the sick, and
families. While the sick and disabled
essary. Because of the newness of the job,
done,” she says. “Essentially, I see myself
Back in Boston, months earlier,
rosary processions. The most pro-
members in our group did not experi-
I can make it into what it needs to be, so
in sort of an advisory role: I’m here to
I, along with Meaghan Bradley ’09,
found experience for me was being
ence miraculous cures of their physical
having the freedom to figure out what
support faculty members however I can
to such an extent that we will need to
and Kimberley Ramjattan ’10, had
able to assist women in the baths one
ailments, many expressed a powerful
will and won’t work is one of the most
in submitting grant proposals so that
expand the department and add more
been selected by the Connell School
afternoon. Pilgrims queue for hours
feeling of an inner peace and comfort
exciting parts for me.”
they get funded.”
support, more people. Ultimately, if we
faculty to participate in the Order of
waiting their turn to be dipped into the
gathered from their special week in
Malta’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes.
healing water. Since 1858, 60 miracles
Lourdes. I have been inspired to carry
Boudreau has been at Boston College for
tance placed on research at the Connell
able to have a structure in which the
Lourdes is a town in the foothills of
have been documented by the Roman
this sentiment forward with me into
eight years, starting out in the Initiatives
School, Boudreau cites the creation of the
research supports itself and all the people
the Pyrenees Mountains in south-
Catholic Church relating various indi-
my nursing career and to continuously
on Aging Project before moving to the
Colleagues Enhancing Research (CERes)
who are contributing to it. I hope we can
eastern France where the Virgin Mary
vidual recoveries from chronic and
remind myself that successful patient
Office for Sponsored Programs, which
group, a peer review panel for faculty
make it happen.
miraculously appeared to a 14-year-old
terminal illnesses upon bathing in the
care goes well beyond physical healing.
oversees all research at BC. She holds an
grant applications. “That is an incredible
28 Boston College Nursing VOICE
Although new to this position,
Optimistic about the increasing impor-
“My hope is that the grants will grow
develop the way we intend to, we’ll be
“I think we can.”
fall/winter 2008 29
alumnae/i VOICE
1950s
Lynn (Strovink)
Daukas ’55
writes that after
five year of
retirement in
the mountains
of Southern
California, she moved to Gig Harbor,
Washington in 2002. There, she
accepted a position as a nurse investigator with Adult Family Services for
the state of Washington. This current
position is a wonderful challenge for
her, because it “utilizes my medical, legal and psychiatric expertise.”
Her son Vince, who lives in Santa
Monica, California, brings all three
of her grandchildren to visit periodically. Lynn recently resumed flying
airplanes with the RFTS Flying Club
after many years on the ground. She
has also discovered a very active social
life thanks to the magic of online dating!
Nancy (Hamilton) Mallio ’57 reports
that now she not only has three sons,
born in 1965, 1966, and 1968, but that
their wives are like daughters as well,
and she and her husband are also now
grandparents. She writes, “Nursing has
enriched my life. I have ‘grown and
become’ and BC has always been a part
of that.”
Patricia Ann
Louise Stafford
O’Toole McKee
’58 is a retired
critical care
nurse, employed the last
25 years of her career at Maine General
30 Boston College Nursing VOICE
Medical Center in Waterville, Maine.
Her oldest son, John O’Toole, lives on
Martha’s Vineyard. Her youngest son,
Jasper William Webb, is 7, a foster son
she hopes to adopt soon. She also has
a stepdaughter, Carol Ann, and two
grandchildren, ages 19 and 21.
1960s
Ann (Carty) Thrailkill ’64 reports that
she and Elaine McKenna’64 joined
other BC alums on a trip to China this
past September, and that both also
plan to attend their 45th BC reunion in
May, and encourage their classmates to
attend. Ann is still working for the VA
in Palo Alto and VISN 21 (from Reno
to Hawaii and Northern California)
as the lead women veterans program
manager.
Carol (Lium O’Brien) Edelman ’65,
MS’76 is a nurse practitioner private
geriatric care manager. She is completing the seventh edition of her nursing
textbook Health Promotion Throughout the Lifespan. She currently serves
on the board of the Conn. Alzheimer’s
Association. She and her husband
live in Westport, Conn. and enjoy the
beach, their three children, and four
grandchildren.
Peggy (Bowes) Best ’67 writes that after
having worked for 20 years in community mental health, she has gone into
private practice doing psychotherapy as
a PMHCNS-BC in Herndon, Virginia.
She uses EMDR, CBT, imagery, and
DBT in her practice. Peggy would love
to hear from anyone working in psych/
mental health or from anyone interested in learning more about EMDR.
Diane (Findlen) Garrow ’69 works
as a patient service manager for the
Visiting Nurse Association of Boston.
Diane is married to Charles G. Garrow
of North Attleboro, Massachusetts,
and they have three children: David
Comeau of Austin, Texas; Michelle
Tagerman of Wrentham, Mass., and
Michael Garrow of Atlanta Georgia.
They have two grandchildren, Jack
and Mark Tagerman who are 6 and 4
years old. Diane had worked for Caritas
Home Care for seven years and served
as nursing supervisor and mission ambassador. She has published in Home
Healthcare Nurse and Massachusetts
Report on Nursing.
1970s
Judi (Moser) Gross ’70 reports that she
still loves her work as bedside nurse at
Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, Mass. Five years ago, she was the
first RN in Northeast Health Systems
to become Med/Surg certified (CMSRN). Judi belongs to the Academy
of Med/Surg Nurses (AMSN), and is
active in her hospital’s committees and
councils. She is an at-large member of
the Region 4 MNA board.
Marge (Latta) Dromgoole ’71 has been
working in community health for the
past 12 years. She is currently working
with children who have multiple disabilities in their homes. She often wonders where the time has gone since
the days at BC. Marge has two grown
children, one lives in Texas, and one
is still in college studying studio arts.
Given this, she expects to continue
working for another several years!
Ginny Bowen Silva ’71 is the coordinator of fetal surgery and clinical education at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
center for labor and birth, and has
been in that position for seven years.
This opportunity has afforded Ginny
the opportunity to present at conferences locally, nationally, and internationally, as well as author a number
of scholarly articles. She also does
some consulting and occasional per
diem work as an NP in a private family
medicine practice. Ginny has raised
five children, and has one grandson.
Nancy T. Fennessy ’72 retired from
nursing in 2002. Since then she has
been actively working on her family’s
genealogy. Nancy headed to Ireland in
August for the third Fennessey family
history meeting, where she presented
a poster session on the current results
of her surname Y DNA project, of
which she is co-administrator. Nancy
also volunteers one day a week at the
state archives, one day with the Irish
Ancestral Research Association, and
another day at her parish rectory. For
fun, she plays duplicate bridge and
hopes to attend the nationals in Boston
in November.
Cynthia Caroselli ’73 is associate
healthcare system director for patient
services and chief nurse executive at
VA New York Harbor Health Care System. She is pleased to report that one
of their sites, the intensive care unit at
the Brooklyn campus, applied for and
received the Beacon Award for Excellence from the American Association
of Critical Care Nurses, making it the
first ICU in New York City and the first
ICU in the entire VA system nationally
to receive this award.
Joyce E. Dains ’73 is the director of
advanced practice nursing at M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas. Most recently, she published the
seventh edition of her first textbook:
Mosby’s Guide to Physical Examination and the third edition of her other
text, Advanced Health Assessment and
Clinical Diagnosis in Primary Care.
She lives in Houston with her husband
and two teenage children.
Cheryl Raab
’73 has spent
the past four
years as a perinatal patient
safety nurse
at Yale-New
Haven Hospital. She recently gave a
presentation at the national convention of the Association of Women’s
Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses
(AWHONN), entitled, “Cesarean Birth
—L&D or Main Operating Suite: Collaboration for Patient Safety.”
Maureen Curtis Cooper ’74 is serving on the national committee to
develop the first certification exam for
pediatric emergency nursing (CPEN)
to be offered starting January 2009.
The CPEN credential demonstrates
extensive experience, knowledge and
abilities related to pediatric emergency
nursing care beyond basic RN licensure.
Pamela Jackson-Malik ’74, director
of nursing research and a research
scientist at the Philadephia VA Medical
Center, was one of 19 invited nurse
executive delegates of the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), who traveled to China
(Beijing, Guiyang, and Shanghai)
over the later part of August and early
September of 2007. They visited a total
of five hospitals and two community
care clinics and met with the Chinese
Nurses Association during their travels. While in China, Pamela presented
her research from 22 magnet hospitals
“Nurse’s Perceptions of Organizational
Climate related to Job Satisfaction,
Burnout, and Intent to Leave” during
a meeting with the Chinese Nurses
Association Board and membership in
Shanghai, China.
F. Marie
(McGowan)
Meisel ’74 was
awarded the
2008 Friedman Award,
given to a nonphysician who has made outstanding
contributions to patient-oriented care,
education, or research on aging or
aging issues. The award is supported
by Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation from the Dorismae and Harvey
A. Friedman Fund. Marie works as a
field nurse in the Memory and Aging
Project at Washington University in St.
Louis.
Zane Robinson Wolf, MS’74 has been
dean of the School of Nursing and
Health Sciences at LaSalle University
for the past 11 years.
Jean M.
Boyd, MS’75
has recently
published
The Greatest
Escape: Follow
the Quantum
fall/winter 2008
31
alumnae/i VOICE
Path to Personal Freedom. The book is
about quantum psychology, a combination of western science and eastern
philosophy, in particular, quantum
mechanics. She notes that her experiences at BC were an essential part of
her ability to write this book.
Susan (Darveau)
Murphy ’75
is proud to
report that
her daughter
graduated from
BC nursing in
2007, and is working at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Anne Marie Hayes Bularzik ’76 reports
that she is working as vice president
of acute care services and chief nurse
executive at Exeter Hospital in Exeter, New Hampshire, and is in the
part-time doctor of nursing practice
program at Case Western Reserve
University. She lives in Andover, Massachusetts.
Mary Ann (Barton) Girard ’76 is the director of Pregnancy Help, a program of
the pro-life office of the Archdiocese of
Boston. She lives in Arlington, Mass.
with her four children.
Jeanne Morello
’76, MS’77 has
had a full and
exciting career
in hospital
administration
since graduating from BC. Currently, she works part
time as an adjunct instructor in the
nursing department at Cape Cod Community College. She and her spouse
32 Boston College Nursing VOICE
of 45 years have six children and eight
grandchildren. She lives full time on
Cape Cod, except for a couple of winter
months spent in California.
Tess (Posch)
O’Neill ’76 is
a Professor
of Nursing at
Our Lady of
Holy Cross
College in New
Orleans. Most recently, she developed
an online RN to BSN curriculum to
be implemented in January 2009. In
2007, Tess was a Fulbright Scholar in
Nigeria.
Mary Irene Vaughan ’76 was hired
two years ago by Home Instead Senior
Care to develop and implement a personal care program for elderly needing personal care in the home. She is
now the director of clinical services for
this program. Mary is also leading the
60-hour training for the personal care
homemakers who carry out the nursing care plans in the home.
Mina (Empoliti) Wilson ’77 began
working for Your Support Nurse as a
geriatric nurse care manager in 2008.
Your Support Nurse is designed to
help people navigate the difficult and
expensive health care system. Mina
has been married to the same great
guy since 1980, and they have four
children, ages 23, 21, 20 and 13. Mina
enjoys recreational walking and has
completed a full marathon and three
half marathons since 2004.
Eileen (Callahan) Aubuchon ’78, MS’81
writes that she is working as a pediatric nurse practitioner at South County
Pediatrics in Webster, Mass. She and
her husband, Donat (CSOM ’77), have
been married over 25 years and have
three children: Suzette, 17, Jacques, 21,
and Jean-Marc, 23. They live in Shrewsbury, Mass.
Paula Banahan
’78 is pleased
to report that
she and her
husband, Jim
(CSOM ’78), recently dropped
off their son Bobby (pictured) to start
his freshman year at BC. She reports
that Bobby’s twin sister Julia will miss
him terribly, but that the whole family hopes to visit and catch some BC
football games.
Patricia (Strahle) Carroll ’79 is the
senior vice president for operations
at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in
Livingston, New Jersey. She recently
celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary, and she and her husband, Walter,
have three children: Kathryn, who is
a senior at Fairfield University; Erin,
who is a junior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Sean, who is a freshman at Landmark College.
Sharon Dirrane ’79 has been working
for Wake Med Home Health Care for
the past four years, and loves it. She
notes that home care has always been
where her heart is. Sharon’s youngest
daughter Katie just started at North
Carolina State University and her
middle daughter returned for her junior year at BC. With her son Brendan
a graduate of North Carolina State,
hers is an ACC house divided!
Valerie D.
Lewis-Mosley
’79 is pleased to
write that this
past April, the
Boston College
office of student
affairs established a University award
in her name, to be presented to a
graduating senior in recognition of the
student’s support of the ideals of the
AHANA student programs. Valerie returned to campus for the awards banquet dinner along with her husband of
11 years, Eugene Mosley, to present the
award to the recipient. Valerie was a cooriginator of the term AHANA, which
has become part of the Boston College
lexicon to reference students of color.
Valerie has retired from clinical practice and serves as a health care policy
advocate. She is a graduate of Seton
Hall Law School, class of 2006.
Katherine Theresa Twitchell ’79, MS’85
took her first vows as a Carmelite
Sister for the Aged and Infirm this past
June. She has recently started in her
first mission at Mother Angeline McCrory Manor in Columbus, Ohio. She
will be working as a nurse practitioner/
restorative nurse in the home for the
next two years, and is anxious to reconnect with her BC friends after being in
the novitiate for the past two years.
1980s
Gina Craig ’80 is the clinical nurse
coordinator for general medicine at
Stanford Hospital and Clinics in Stanford, California. She and her husband,
Tom, and have just celebrated their
25th wedding anniversary, and have
two children: Mallory, who recently
graduated from Sonoma State Univer-
sity, and Alex, who started at Princeton
in the fall.
Rebecca Lefebvre Davis ’80 reports
that after 17 years in the acute care setting, she moved to the business sector
as a healthcare consultant with Johnson & Johnson, and is now working
as an executive sales consultant with
Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Rebecca has
three sons: Matthew, 26, John 25, and
Mark, 22. Matthew was drafted by the
Cleveland Indians while at Ohio State
and is now with the Chicago White
Sox organization, pursuing a baseball
career. Rebecca writes that she would
love to reconnect with some of her BC
classmates!
Barbara Dehn
’80 received
the NP of
Distinction
Award from
the California
Association for
Nurse Practitioners this past March.
She received this honor for her efforts
to raise issues of women’s health nationally as well as in California. Dehn
is an accomplished national speaker on
a variety of women’s health topics, is a
regular on-air women’s health expert
for NBC’s “iVillageLive” and “In the
Loop with iVillage,” and is the founder
of Blue Orchid Press, LLC, a publishing company devoted to empowering
women with practical health information. She is also the regular health
expert for “The View from the Bay,”
a daytime show on ABC in San Francisco.
RoseMarie (Donnelly) Cruz ’81 has
worked at Children’s Hospital Boston
for the past 25-years, currently in the
PACU and DSU. She is married to
Tim Cruz, who is the Plymouth County
district attorney. They have two sons:
Tim started at BC this fall as part of the
class of 2012, and Alex is a junior in
high school.
Susan Murphy,
MS’81, PhD’94
is a tenured
faculty member
at Rivier College
and has been
directing the
RN-BS and MS programs for the past
four years. She was granted a sabbatical last year, and conducted an aftermath study based on her dissertation
work. She has since presented these
findings at local scholarly events, and
is now exploring further dissemination
opportunities. On a personal front, she
and her husband, Rich, now have two
grandchildren, Lily, 4, and Connor, 1.
Lynne Nemeth, MS’81 reports that
after working for many years in nursing administration, outcomes and care
management, she completed her PhD
in 2005 and has shifted into a faculty
role. She is currently associate professor in the college of nursing at Medical
University of South Carolina, and is a
health services researcher in a primary
care research network (PPRNet) of
practices using a common electronic
medical record tool (Practice Partner).
Lynne’s focus has been on translating
research into practice, and involving
all practice staff to develop skills to
incorporate evidence-based practice
and improve specific outcomes. She
fall/winter 2008 33
alumnae/i VOICE
has lived in Charleston, South Carolina for about 10 years, and with her
husband, Steve Ornstein, and has two
step-children.
Mary Ellen Bowers ’82 has been working as a research nurse in the biologics
department at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since 2007. The
program is a regional referral center
for patients with renal cancer, and as a
member of the team, she participates
in the care and monitoring of subjects
on clinical trials.
Denise Charron-Prochownik MS’82
has been selected as a fellow of the
American Academy of Nursing
(FAAN). Charron-Prochownik is an
associate professor in the schools of
nursing and public health at the University of Pittsburgh. Her NIH-funded
research program focuses on preconception counseling interventions for
adolescent girls with diabetes and is,
called Reproductive Health Education
and Awareness of Diabetes in Youth
for Girls (“READY-Girls”).
Donna (Principato) Sawyer ’82, MS’84
practices as a psychiatric clinical nurse
specialist. She is co-founder of Milton
Counseling Group, which was established in 1986 with a fellow nurse. Her
practice consists of individual psychotherapy, consulting and psychopharmacology. Donna reports that after 24
years, she continues to love her career
and is proud of the role of nursing in
psychiatry.
Ellen Whalen ’83 is the chief nursing
officer for the University of Southern
California (USC) University and USC
Norris Cancer hospitals. She recently
34 Boston College Nursing VOICE
celebrated her 27th wedding anniversary with her husband, Mark Whalen,
a dentist. They have two sons: Michael,
who just graduated from USC; and
Matthew, who has just been accepted
to USC for this fall. Ellen has been accepted into the doctorate in regulatory
science program at USC this fall. She
comments, “As you can see, we are
quite the Trojan family, but I’ll never
forget my BC experience and we still
cheer for the Eagles!”
Gloria Antall, MS’87 has been an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve
University since 1994. She teaches
intensive classes in nursing theory for
one week every three months. Gloria
lives in Plymouth, Mass. for half of the
year and Cleveland, Ohio for the other
half of the year. She will be teaching
a two-week medical surgical nursing
course in Vietnam this fall, for the first
class of masters nursing students in all
of Vietnam. Gloria has three children
and seven grandchildren.
Cheryl (Dishner) Bardetti ’84 began
a new job this past September as assistant director of case management at
Metro West Medical Center. She and
her husband, Renzo, have two boys:
Peter, 12, and Andrew, 18, who started
as a freshman at BC this fall. They
have lived in Southborough, Mass., for
the past 14 years.
Magi Escalante ’87 has been working
at the Joseph M. Smith Community
Health Center in Waltham, Mass. for
the past four years. Prior to this role,
she had taken off eight years from
nursing to be a stay at home mom for
sons Julian and Dante.
Helen F. Williams MS’84 has spent the
last 24 years caring for and promoting the health of workers within the
greater Boston area. She became
active in the American Association
of Occupational Health Nurses at the
onset of her career and is certified as
an occupational health nurse specialist.
Helen was honored by this association
with a fellowship at their April annual
meeting in Salt Lake City this year.
Elizabeth Rochford ’87 was awarded
the 2008 Oncology Nursing Society
(ONS) Excellence in Nursing-Sensitive Patient Outcomes Award. This
award recognizes her as having had
a significant impact on the outcomes
of nursing care delivered to patients
experiencing cancer through her work
on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Delirium Project. She is an active
member of ONS, the Chicago chapter
of ONS, and the National Association
of Clinical Nurse Specialists.
Lynne (Chandler) Spirito ’85 lives in
Groton, Mass. with her husband, Nick,
and two children, Michael, 16, and
Lindsay, 15. She works as an operating
room RN at Lowell General Hospital’s surgery center. Her husband is a
general surgeon and chief of surgery at
Saints Medical Center in Lowell, Mass.
Colleen (Sheehy) Simonelli MS’87
earned her PhD this past May from
UMass Lowell. Colleen is a full-time
clinical instructor at Boston College.
Mary E. Thompson MS’88 reports that
she will finish her PhD at the University of Virginia School of Nursing
during the 2008-2009 academic year.
She notes that she “owes her gratitude
to Boston College and especially Pam
Burke, who was a great mentor.”
1990s
Cindy (Testa) Keane ’90 recently welcomed Jessica Rose to the Keane family. She joins her brother Jimmy, 5, and
sister Jenna, 3, as the youngest of the
Keane family. Cindy is currently working as an RN in the medical/surgical
ICU at Children’s Hospital Boston.
Erin (Gregory)
Murray ’90
owns her own
business,
Medical-Legal
Resources, Inc.,
a legal nurse
consulting firm.
Victoria (Bryan) Curtin ’91 works
part-time as a women’s health nurse
practitioner in the health clinic at the
Fashion Institute of Technology in
Manhattan. She is married with two
daughters.
Aimee (Dallape) Bollentin ’91 recently
earned her master’s from the University of Massachusetts Graduate School
of Nursing and sat for acute care nurse
practitioner boards this summer.
She is employed at UMass Memorial
Healthcare as an acute care nurse practitioner in the medical ICU and eICU.
Valerie J. Fuller
’91, MS’98
completed
the doctor of
nursing practice
(DNP) program
at the MGH
Institute of Health Professions this
past August. Valerie was also awarded
the Christine Bridges Nursing Scholarship. She is currently working as
an FNP at Maine Medical Center in
Portland. She plans to head back to
school for a post-master’s certificate in
acute care.
Laura E. Krawczuk ’92, MS’00 was
recently promoted to director of transplant nursing at Children’s Hospital
Boston.
Andrea Camelio Waldt ’93 is working
as a clinical and research coordinator at
University of Maryland Medical Center
in the division of gastroenterology. She
works specifically with patients who
have Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. In 2001, Waldt earned
her master’s of health science with a
concentration in health administration
from Towson University. She lives in
Bel Air, Maryland, with her husband of
seven years, Patrick, and their beautiful
daughter, Madeline Elizabeth, 4.
Crystal C. Carvotta-Brown ’95 was
recently promoted to president, national network development at MES
Solutions. She earned her master’s of
management with a concentration in
health administration from Cambridge
College in 2003, and is currently pursuing her PhD in health administration. She lives in Arlington, Mass. with
her husband, Dan. She is the proud
aunt of William and Kendall.
Deborah McCarter-Spaulding,
MS’95 completed her PhD
in nursing from
UMass Lowell in March,
2007, and is now assistant professor of
nursing at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Deb’s dissertation research was on breastfeeding self-efficacy in women of African
descent. At St. Anselm College, she is
teaching nursing of the childbearing
family in classroom and in clinical, as
well as teaching research and evidencebased practice. She has also been
accepted as a protégé for the National
League for Nurses Faculty Mentoring
and Leadership program.
Cathy M. St. Pierre, PhD’95 was
inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners
(AANP) on Sunday, June 29 in Washington, D.C. Professionals are selected
for this honor based on their outstanding contributions to healthcare through
nurse practitioner clinical practice,
research, education or health policy.
Currently there are over 145,000 NPs
in this country and 166 of them are
recognized as Fellows of the American
Academy Nurse Practitioners.
Toni Abraham, MS’96 is the associate
medical director for the Boston Health
Care for the Homeless program. She is
very excited to let everyone know that
the organization’s administrative and
respite operations have recently moved
into Jean Yawkey Place (formerly the
Mallory Building) at 780 Albany Street
in Boston. The facility was known as
the old city morgue and pathology
fall/winter 2008 35
alumnae/i VOICE
lab for a variety of medical schools in
Boston. In another month, they will
also be transferring their primary care
clinic at Boston Medical Center to the
new building, as well. Toni has recently
been elected the new president of the
Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses (MARN). She notes, “I
have the support of some of the best
nursing educators and clinicians in
nursing and am proud and honored to
be an integral part of this professional
affiliate of ANA.”
Monica (Belanger) Aerstin ’96 currently works as a nurse practitioner
in an outpatient heart failure clinic in
Atlanta. She lives with her husband,
Mike, and their 10-month-old son,
Luke, in Peachtree City, Georgia.
Joseph O.
Schmelz,
PhD’96 was
recently named
a fellow of the
American Academy of Nursing
(FAAN). He is currently the director
of the institutional review board (IRB)
and an associate research professor in
the Department of Acute Nursing Care
at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. A retired
U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, he
conducts military nursing research
and recently co-authored a publication
in the March edition of Critical Care
Nursing Clinics of North America,
“Military Nursing Research: Translation to disaster response and day-to-day
critical care nursing.”
36 Boston College Nursing VOICE
Tammi Magazzu, MS’97 co-authored
the article “When and how to treat
vaginal discharge” in the May 2008
issue of The Clinical Advisor.
Stephanie J. Martinez ’97 graduated
from the MBA program at Boston University in January of 2008. Also, she
received a promotion and is now the
charge nurse for the cardiac catheterization lab at Boston Medical Center.
Karen Uttaro ’97 and her husband,
Nate (LSOE ’96, ’97), recently welcomed their second daughter, Julianna,
to their family this past July. They
report that big sister Angelina could
not be more excited!
Jill (Carpenter) Beisel ’98 was married
to David Beisel on June 7. Nursing
classmates Julia (Mancuso) Perkins
’98, Sarah Park ’98, and Mary Beth
(Vieira) Sosa ’98 joined Jill for her
wedding on Cape Cod.
Darcy (Noonan) Beston ’99 works
part-time as a labor and delivery nurse
at MGH in Boston, and is mom to her
15-month-old daughter, Molly.
Laryn (Schimpf) Cullen ’99 is working as a staff nurse on a head and neck
surgical unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She
is currently pursuing an adult nurse
practitioner degree from Seton Hall
University.
2000s
Jennifer Maloney ’00 is a critical care
RN in New York City and is working
toward her master’s degree as an acute
care nurse practitioner at New York
University.
Liz Murphy ’00 is presently the orientation coordinator for the Emergency Medicineand Trauma Center at
Children’s National Medical Center in
Washington, D.C. She is also a student
in the pediatric NP program at Catholic
University.
Marie (Hong) Namkoong ’00 and her
husband Tae (CSOM ’00), have two
children: Andrew, 6, and Aiden, 4.
They moved to Avon, Conn. in 2004,
and Marie works as the school nurse
at the Watkinson School, a private day
school in Hartford, Conn.
Denise (Ajewski) Hache ’01, MS’08
completed the BC nurse anesthesia
program this past May, and is now
working for Anaesthesia Associates of
Massachusetts. She lives in Tewksbury,
Mass. with her husband, Jason.
Ali Baghai ’02 is currently living in
Scottsdale, Arizona, pursuing a master’s degree in nurse anesthesia from
Midwestern University.
Tara (LaRosee) Beuoy ’02 is currently
working at The Risk Management
Foundation as a clinical coding specialist. She is married with a one-year-old
son.
Deborah A. D’Avolio, PhD’03 is completing her two-year appointment as
a John A. Hartford Claire M. Fagin
Postdoctoral Fellow at the University
of Pennsylvania. She has been working with her mentor, Professor Neville
Strumpf, director of the Hartford
Foundation Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at the University of
Pennsylvania. Her research is focused
on access to care and the health care
needs of older adults. She has recently
joined Massachusetts General Hospital
as a geriatric specialist. Deborah is
enjoying her new role, which involves
the development of geriatric education,
policies, and practice.
Alex Gleason, PhD’04 reports that he
and his wife, Nancy, are doing great in
Boston. He is having a terrific time at
Liberty Mutual researching psychosocial aspects of occupationally induced
low back pain. This research has also
allowed him to present papers in
Glasgow, Scotland and Seoul, Korea. He
encourages classmates to look him up
on Facebook.
Natalie Meyers ’04 is in the California Air National Guard and currently
deployed to Al-Udeid Air Base as a
flight nurse. She reports that it has been
a very rewarding experience and she
has learned a lot, but admits that she is
anxious to return home to California!
David Skovran ’04 is a staff nurse for
the Visiting Nurse Service of New York,
making home visits in Manhattan. He
is also enrolled in a master’s program
at New York University, in their primary
care NP program. Dave married Kimberly Chin, CSOM’04, this past August.
Shila Hill ’05 works for Brigham and
Women’s Hospital. She is the program
coordinator and diabetes nurse educator for the diabetes self-management
education program at the adult primary
care office, Brigham and Women’s at
Newton Corner.
Jeanne Jacoby MS’05 is one of two
nurse practitioners running an inpatient diabetes consult service at
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
in Lebanon, NH. She focuses on the
management of blood glucose in the
hospital and then assists in transitioning patients to an effective outpatient
diabetes medication regimen. She
and her husband celebrated the first
birthday of their daughter Hannah on
July 11.
alumnae/i weekend
may 2008
Tarajean (Brennan) Lewis, MS’05 coauthored the article “When and how
to treat vaginal discharge” in the May
2008 issue of The Clinical Advisor.
Lisa Skayne MS’05 recently began
working at Harvard Vanguard Medical
Associates in Boston as a primary care
adult NP. Previously, she worked at a
non-profit as an NP for people with
disabilities.
Beth Tumolo ‘05 is working for New
Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing
Network as a first responder transplant
coordinator evaluating potential organ
donors. One of only 16 nurses in the
state of New Jersey that work for this
organization, she covers all of the organ
recoveries in the state.
Annie Lewis-O’Connor, PhD’07 was
elected president of the Nursing
Network on Violence Against Women
International board of directors in
October 2007.
Alumnae/i news is compiled
from alumnae/i submissions
as well as from a variety of
outside media sources. To
include your news in the
next issue, email us at:
nursing.alums@bc.edu
Second photo from top courtesy of Maureen
Smith ‘83. Other photography by Kirsten Erwin.
fall/winter 2008 37
dialogue
Lichuan Ye | Barbara Wolfe
endnote
Discovering Nursing Research
As a young girl, fond
My first introduction
of math and biology,
to research was as an
I dreamed of being a
undergraduate student.
scientist. Growing up
One day in class, a nurs-
in China where “nurse”
ing doctoral student
was translated from
from another university
English only several
invited us to participate
decades ago and there
in a health-related sur-
is no clue that this word
vey being conducted by
could relate to scien-
her mentor, a “nurse
tific research, I was not
scientist.” I remember
convinced that being a
thinking, “What was a
nurse would fulfill my childhood dream. After finishing my
doctoral student studying nursing? What was a mentor? Why
BSN, the rooted image of nurses as order-takers without
would a nurse be doing a survey?” This whole thing seemed
any autonomy made me decide to change my direction to
rather novel. Was this because I was a young student, just
be a physician. The clinical training inspired me to conduct
learning, or was it related to the state of the discipline? More
research that could directly improve the lives of patients
than 20 years later, I think it is likely to be a combination
suffering from chronic medical conditions.
of both, keeping in mind that this was before the National
My mentor in medicine advised me that solid research
training, including training as a nurse researcher, would
Institute of Nursing Research or its predecessor existed.
Today, research is increasingly and instinctively embedded
help me to meet this goal. With his encouragement and
into the fabric of nursing. Nurses rely on the science to shape
my passion to be a researcher, I came to the United States
practice in the clinical setting. Nursing students are routinely
to pursue my PhD in nursing. At the time, however, my
exposed to the importance of using research to improve
friends—and even I, myself—could not understand how
patient care. Nurses are actively taking lead roles is creating
nurses can do research. Along with a new language, I have
the science. This includes examining and advancing better
also been exposed to a different view of nursing. I am con-
solutions to familiar problems, as is BC doctoral student Lisa
sistently impressed by the wide variety of nurses’ research,
Duffy, who is conducting a study funded by NINR to exam-
from genetics to history. If my Chinese mentor in medicine
ine the efficacy of an intervention designed to assist parents
encouraged me to come back to nursing, my U.S. nursing
in coping with a child’s illness. Likewise, nurses are increas-
mentor taught me there are no boundaries to being a scien-
ingly pioneering unexplored territories, as illustrated by
tist, and that nurses can conduct research that contributes
doctoral fellow Patti Underwood, who is pursuing the study
to the scientific world. This mind-opening process has
of genomic markers in chronic illnesses to further develop
made me proud to be a nurse, and I am committed to chal-
individualized treatment planning.
lenging the bias against nursing in my home country. I see
Szent-Gyorgyi once said, “Research is to see what every-
myself reaching closer to my childhood dream of being a
body else has seen and think what nobody else has thought.”
scientist. Deeply honored by joining the faculty of Connell
Nursing has a unique scope to bring to bear on clinical
School, I hope to share my pride and passion in being a
research, contributing to new ways of thinking about issues
nurse researcher, including my struggles with professional
and potential solutions. Today, the question is no longer,
self-identification, with the students as I contribute to the
“Why would a nurse be doing research?” but rather, “Why
research mission of our school.
not a nurse?”
Lichuan Ye, PhD, RN is an assistant professor of adult
health in her first year at the Connell School.
Barbara Wolfe, PhD, APRN, CS, FAAN is professor and
director of the center for nursing research at the Connell
School.
38 Boston College Nursing VOICE
Forensic Nursing at BC: Angela Amar, Danny Willis, and Holly Fontenot collaborate on development of the new advanced practice specialty.
william f. connell
school of nursing
140 commonwealth avenue
chestnut hill, ma 02467
non profit org.
u.s. postage paid
boston, ma
permit # 55294