Convocation Speech
Connell School of Nursing
Elizabeth Brown (1985)
May 18, 2014
To the Class of 2014 – today and tomorrow you are crossing key milestones in
your personal and professional lives – CONGRATULATIONS!!
I will start by giving thanks. “Thank you” colleagues for inviting me to participate
in your day. I am honored to be with you at one of the best nursing schools in the
world! And I should know, I travel a lot, as you heard in the very thoughtful
introductory remarks by Cindy, thank you.
Thank you Provost Quinn, Father Butler, Dean Gennaro, Dean Read and the entire
faculty for your leadership, dedication, and inspiration in forming our future of
nursing.
Thank you family, friends, loved ones for the support, encouragement, and sense
of humor graciously and generously, extended to all the graduates as they fulfill
their dreams.
When I received this extremely thoughtful invitation to speak today and share
what it is like from my lens to be a BC graduate, I was struck with the magnitude
of a very simple sentence in Amanda’s invitation, which noted “Convocation is a
very intimate ceremony where the members of the nursing class are able to
reflect on their four years and be congratulated on their achievements.”
Words are so powerful and I would take three of these words to heart as I share
some of stories or insights into what it means to me to be a BC nurse.
These words are:
 Achievements
 Intimate
 Reflect
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The first word: Achievements
As I reflect on the almost 30 years since I was sitting where you are sitting today, I
am struck with a few things I learned about achievements:
 Some are very clear and well planned – you set your mind on something,
work hard and reach the finish line.
 Some are less clear yet result because someone else sees something in you
and pushes you to do something you never would have considered – please
be open to these as they will surprise you.
 And some achievements could never have been planned – in fact, might
come out of failure or loss – and you cannot under-estimate the power of
these achievements.
I was about 8 years out of BC, married to a BC graduate, living in a beautiful
house, working at a job I loved at Beth Israel, and getting my masters at BC as
clinical nurse specialist. To all around, including myself, I had incredible personal
and professional achievements. Yet there was an unexpected, abrupt change in
the course of my and my families’ lives – my husband died after a courageous
battle with cancer at age 29 and as I tried to get back on my feet I found it hard to
nurse to sick patients. It felt too close – the lines of my personal and professional
life had blurred and I was lost.
I had monumental support of friends and family – many from the BC community
who guided me as I adjusted to a very unexpected change in my life’s journey.
And after much hard work, I completed my MBA at Northwestern University in
Chicago and my masters in community health nursing at Rush University as I could
not imagine not being a nurse. And then I felt an enormous pull to get involved in
something beyond myself, perhaps beyond our borders. I did not realize at the
time that a volunteer experience would change my life. I volunteered in Honduras
after Hurricane Mitch and it propelled me into global health. And that experience
led to other work in Latin America, which led to being asked to join a team from
Harvard Medical International and that led to my current work at Partners
Healthcare International where I am privileged to work with nurses all over the
world. There is a simple saying by Gandhi, “almost everything you do in life will
seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it.”
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Even if you are not sure where the path is going, and what achievements you
want to strive for, trust that if you are doing what you love to do, the
achievements will follow. And you will realize that your whole perspective of
what is meaningful to each of you individually will be different and will be
expanded beyond your imagination. For me, some of my most meaningful
achievements surprised me:
 Receiving dozes of emails from colleague across the world after the
Marathon Bombing checking if I and my family were ok and sending
support
 Seeing young nurses I had worked with closely in India and Turkey over
many years now reaching their achievements that they never thought
possible
 And on a personal note, sharing in my step daughter Delia’s choice of
nursing and my niece Hannah’s acceptance to BC
Often, your most meaningful achievements will be very simple and result from
the trusting relationships you build with your patients and your colleagues.
Which brings me to the second word, Intimate:
You will be with patients and families at some of the most intimate moments in
their lives: perhaps – during the entry of life; during the passing of life.
You see, our patients allow us to be present with them during these events, it is a
privilege. And what I understand about being a BC graduate is that we have the
tools to engage in these experiences and be present with our patients; and when
we come across something we might not feel prepared for, BC’s motto of “ever to
excel” propels us to seek new knowledge and the answers we need.
And while it may not seem so clear to you now, I promise you, the years in this
learning community of liberal arts, science and core Jesuit and family values will
serve you well.
One story immediately comes to mind of when I fully grasped the magnitude of
my BC education.
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I was about 2 years out of school; I was working the last of a string of 12 hour
night shifts in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) before taking some vacation.
My patient had just come out of the operating room after open heart surgery and
all indications were that he should have an uneventful recovery process. Yet he
did not; he cardiac arrested 3 times that night.
I remember 2 distinct things about that night. The first, is I remember how I had
frequently bent close to his ear to tell him not to be afraid, that we were with
him, to hold on, that he would be ok as I could only imagine if he had any sense of
what was happening all around him - the people, the machines, the noise, he
must be afraid. Empathy. You see a BC nursing professor had once told me about
the power of the sense of hearing, that patients maintain this sense even when
we might not think so.
The second thing I remember is that the new residents had just started their
rotations as it was July; and the initial one working with me was very new and
needed a lot of my support at managing this patient. At one point she was not
doing effective CPR and I had to muster the courage to tell her to switch with me.
She later thanked me for helping her get through the night, and getting the
patient through the night.
About a week later, I came back from vacation and was working the day shift
when the ICU doors swung open and in walked the patient and his wife. He told
me he could not leave without seeing me – and thanking me. He said as long as
he lived he would never forget my voice whispering in his ear. Even though he
was sedated, on a ventilator and arresting, he heard my voice through the
mayhem of the night.
As I reflected on this very intimate experience with my patient, it became clear to
me without a doubt that my BC education, your BC education, has masterfully
woven the ART of Nursing and the SCIENCE of nursing and has guided me as it will
guide you to be present in the most intimate experiences of our patients.
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Which brings me to the third word: Reflect:
A core practice in the spiritual teachings of St. Ignatius is reflection – as one
engages in the world, to be able to step back and view that engagement is a
wonderful skill. A cornerstone of your nursing practice will be reflection, and I
encourage you to hone this practice and use it to your advantage to mine key
learning’s as you develop – whether in quiet reflection in thought as I do each day
when I walk my dog with my husband Ralph, whether giving it voice in storytelling as we are doing today, or putting pen to paper with journaling – this
exercise has helped me learn so much about myself through both failure and
success.
I was recently in the Middle East teaching in a leadership course with a
community of nurse managers from all over the world. One of my colleagues, a
very experienced, wonderful senior nurse leader from the MGH, told the group
that she has kept a journal from her very first patient and over ensuing decades
she can look back and see how she has developed as a nurse. She joked how her
grown sons tease on who will get the sacred journals when, yet fused in the
humor is the recognition that reflection has been critical to her lifelong journey as
nurse clinician and a nurse leader.
So as we gather for this Convocation – from the Latin word, “to come together” –
to reflect on all your accomplishments across this campus, across this community,
throughout health care settings, across borders – Switzerland, Haiti, Dominican
Republic, Nicaragua, Ecuador - just to name a few – and to celebrate not only
what has been accomplished, but also the infinite possibilities of what can be
achieved by a BC nurse.
And remember, like the poet Robert Frost, like me, and like so many before you,
sometimes taking the path less traveled by, can make all the difference.
Thank you, God Bless, Good Luck, and Congratulations.
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