Summer 2012

william f. connellschool of nursing voice

Clinical training in EcuadorLiving and Learning in SpaniSh

2 Voice

From the Dean

Dear Friends, This issue of Voice focuses on leadership in health care, with news

and features on alumni leaders and the Connell School of Nursing’s

pioneering efforts to educate and train students abroad before they go

forward to “set the world aflame.”

Our story on living and learning in Ecuador brings alive some of the

experiences of five undergraduates who spent a recent semester doing

clinical training, improving their language skills, and expanding their

cultural competence in South America.

This edition of the magazine also highlights alumni who are leading

some of the nation’s top health care institutions and organizations,

from a major urban teaching hospital to the American Nurses

Association. They stand at the vanguard of health care improvement

in the United States.

Ultimately, it is the achievements of faculty and students, and the

standout work of alumni, that demonstrate the impact of a school.

I hope to see you soon, and to hear more about what you are doing as a

member of the Connell School of Nursing family.

Yours,

Susan Gennaro

Dean

dean

Susan Gennaro

editor

Maureen Dezell

managing editor

Tracy Bienen

contributors

William Bole

Michael Rafferty

Debra Bradley Ruder

photographers

Caitlin Cunningham

Gary Wayne Gilbert

John Gillooly

Ivan Kashinsky

Adrian Mueller

Lee Pellegrini

Christopher Soldt

Voice is published by the William F. Connell School of Nursing and the Boston College Office of Marketing Communications.

Letters and comments are welcome:csonalum@bc.eduCommunications SpecialistWilliam F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College140 Commonwealth AvenueChestnut Hill, MA 02467

Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

3Summer 2012

news

4 The spring Pinnacle lecture, alumni and faculty awards, Boston College’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Scholarship goes to a CSON student, undergraduate research, and promotions

features

6 Clinical training in Ecuador: Living and learning in SpanishJuniors spend an extraordinary semester in Quito, Ecuador.

10 Fulfilling destiny: Insights from executive suitesFive alumni talk about what it takes to lead top-tier health care institutions.

14 Nursing for others: A Jesuit priest at the Connell SchoolRichard Ross, S.J., builds bridges between CSON and the Jesuit community.

achievements

16 Faculty publications

Summer 2012

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12

voice

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On the cover: Mary Keeley ’13 listens to the heartbeat of Stalin David Almeida Toapanta, a 10-year-old student at 24 de Julio, a public school in Tumbaco, Ecuador. Photograph: Ivan Kashinsky

Top: Brianna Sacco ’12 presents her scholarly work at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Photograph: Christopher Soldt

Middle: Mary Keeley ’13 walks from the San Martin bus stop to her Ecuadorian host family’s home in La Paz, a neighborhood in Quito. Photograph: Ivan Kashinsky

Bottom left: Mairead Hickey ’72. Photograph: John Gillooly

Bottom right: Richard Ross, S.J., with students in his Ethical Reasoning and Issues in Advanced Nursing Practice course. Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

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4 Voice

News from the Connell School

Karen Daley, M.S. ’04, Ph.D. ’10, with colleagues and friends before the Pinnacle lecture. Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

spring pinnacle lecture: ana president Karen daleyThe Affordable Care Act and the landmark Future of Nursing report opened doors to new opportunities and challenges for nurses, American Nurses Association President Karen Daley told an audience of 300 during her April 10 spring Pinnacle lecture. Daley, a former staff nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who received a master’s and a Ph.D. in nursing from Boston College, is an accomplished researcher, writer, and nationally recog-nized nurse advocate. In 2011, Modern Healthcare named her one of the 100 most influential people in health care. View video at www.bc.edu/pinnaclearchive

plaudits for cson graduates The New England Regional Black Nurses Association lauded and applauded nurse leaders Kelly DePina ’01; Tricia Gordon ’06, M.S. ’14; and Jane Tuitt ’97 at its 40th anniversary dinner in February. DePina, a staff nurse with the Intermediate Care Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, and Gordon, a staff nurse at Massa-chusetts General Hospital, each received an Award for Excellence in Nursing Practice. Tuitt, clinical director of the Dorchester High School Health Center and a women’s health nurse practitioner at Codman Square Health Center, accepted the association’s Excellence in Education and Training Award.

At its April 27 dinner, the Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses honored the memory of Helen Fagan ’58 with its Excellence in Nursing Education Award. The longtime director of the St. Elizabeth’s Hos-pital School of Nursing died in 2011. The association gave an Excellence in Nursing Research Award to CSON faculty member Katherine Gregory, who is currently a Haley Nurse Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospi-tal, and presented its Mary A. Manning Nurse Mentor-ing Award to Cecilia McVey ’72, associate director for Nursing/Patient Services at the VA Boston Health Care System. Read more about McVey on page 13.

Daley’s talk on new nursing opportunities packs the Heights Room. Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

5Summer 2012

2012 mlK scholarship goes to cson undergraduateThe University’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Scholarship Committee presented Sandra Dickson ’13 with its 30th annual scholarship at a February 10 ceremony at Robsham Theater Arts Center. The competitive award is given each year to a Boston College junior who has demonstrated superior academic achievement, extracur-ricular leadership, community service, and involvement with African American issues. The winner receives a grant toward senior year tuition. In her application essay, Dickson wrote, “Nursing is an embodiment of Dr. King’s philosophy because it is a profession that demands compassion, selflessness, and advocacy from its workers.”

Malika Weekes ’13 was also nominated for the King scholarship. It was the first time two CSON students were chosen as finalists.

Christy Tran ’12 presents research on how caregivers can identify the psychosocial needs of women with unintended pregnancies. Photograph: Christopher Soldt

cson students present research at symposiumSeven Connell School of Nursing students were among the 54 undergraduate presenters who took part in the sixth annual Boston College Undergraduate Research Symposium February 3.

During a panel on Health Care Challenges, Alexandra Mulloy ’12 and Terry Bustos ’13 summarized research they conducted with CSON faculty members. Mulloy described a cost/benefit study of using human patient simulation to improve nursing students’ critical think-ing skills. Bustos, who spent five weeks in a rural hos-pital in the Philippines, recounted obstacles to adequate health care she observed while she was in that country.

Five students took part in the symposium’s open-ing poster session. Margaret Veroneau ’12 and Kelly Leonard ’12 reported results of a web survey designed to characterize binge eating and other eating disorders among undergraduates. Brianna Sacco ’12 presented findings on loss of control associated with binge-eating disorders. Amy Thibodeau ’12 summarized 10 CSON students’ experiences helping to deliver community health care in Haiti. And Christy Tran ’12 explained her research on caregivers’ roles in improving outcomes for women with unintended pregnancies.Sandra Dickson ’13 accepts the 30th annual Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Scholarship. Photograph: Lee Pellegrini

promotionsKatherine Gregory was promoted to associate profes-sor with tenure.

Colleen Simonelli was promoted to clinical associate professor.

6 Voice

Clinical training in EcuadorLiving and Learning in SpaniSh

BY DEBRA BRADLEY RUDER

PHOTOGRAPHS BY IVAN KASHINSKY

7Summer 2012Left: Mara Renold ’13 is guided through Leopold’s Maneuvers, a common way to determine a fetus’s position and weight, by Laura Jami, an obstetrician at the health center in Tumbaco. Above: Beth Harvey ’13. Photograph: Lee Pellegrini

When a little girl arrived at the com-munity health center with a mouthful of blood from a playground spill, Beth Harvey ’13 leapt

up. While the center’s dentist gave the child medicine to prevent infection and another staff member tracked down her mother, Harvey cleaned the girl’s gums and face and did her best to provide comfort. Messy emergencies are a routine part of many Connell School of Nursing students’ clinical assignments. This one, however, took place in Ecuador. The entire exchange was in Spanish.

“I was amazed at the amount of trust people put in me,” Harvey recalls. “I felt accomplished that I was able to communicate and get the girl in better shape than when she came in.”

Harvey spent the fall 2011 semester in the small South American country, immersing herself in the language and culture while building her nursing skills. Connell School undergraduates, like many of their Boston College classmates, have been going to Ecuador for years through Boston College’s Office of International Programs. They take core and elective courses at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ).

CSON is among the minority of baccalaureate nurs-ing schools in the United States that offer semester-long international learning opportunities (see sidebar). Boston College recently expanded its Ecuadorian program, add-ing a clinical nursing component that allows students to fulfill the community nursing requirement that is usually completed in Boston during senior year.

Harvey and five of her Connell School classmates, who spent the spring semester in Ecuador, inaugurated the program during the 2011–12 academic year. They enjoyed traditional study abroad opportunities—staying with host families, exploring a new culture and country—while getting hands-on experience in schools and health care centers serving Ecuador’s rural poor.

The nursing school’s goal, says Associate Dean Catherine Read, is to encourage students to “improve their Spanish (both conversational and medical), deepen their understanding of community nursing and global health, and generally broaden their horizons.” That, she adds, is “an experience you can’t get unless you go there. They’ll see the challenges people face, as well as their resilience.”

Round-the-clock learningEcuador was an alluring destination for Harvey, who studied Spanish in high school and is pursuing a minor in Hispanic studies. (Her sister Erin ’12, a double major in English and Hispanic studies, spent a semes-ter in Ecuador last year.) An independent country of 14 million people on the northwestern coast of South America, Ecuador has an ethnically mixed population that includes people of Spanish and South American Indian descent. Its culture, traditions, and natural won-ders like the Galápagos Islands and Amazon rainforest attract tourists from around the world. On the other hand, more than one-half the country’s rural population is impoverished—beset by illiteracy, infant mortality, malnutrition, infectious diseases, and other problems common in poor communities.

It is impossible to ignore the country’s economic inequality, says Harvey. “I would be on the public bus with people trying to make a living selling chocolates or mandarin oranges. Then we’d get to the university, and people would have their Blackberrys and designer jeans and nice cars,” she recalls.

Term-time study abroad isn’t universalNursing educators appear to agree that studying abroad enhances undergraduate nursing education: It builds foreign language skills, introduces students to other traditions and cultures, and raises awareness of global health problems.

But only 89 (23 percent) of U.S. baccalaureate nurs-ing schools offer semester-long study abroad programs, according to Associate Dean Catherine Read, who surveyed 382 schools in 2008 and published her find-ings last summer in the Journal of Professional Nursing. Additionally, most reported that only zero to 5 percent of students participate—compared to the 17 to 26 percent of Connell School juniors who typically do each year.

Although Read’s peers applaud the concept, many said their curricula are too packed to accommodate a term spent away, she notes. CSON builds the study abroad option into its curriculum.

8 Voice

One of 13 Boston College undergraduates—and the only nursing student—to spend the fall in Ecuador, Harvey took a slate of courses at USFQ, all taught in Spanish. CSON students also take a medical school class, called Integrated Community Development III, that fea-tures two clinical assignments, and they learn intensive medical Spanish from Professor Amanda de Grunauer, the resident coordinator for Boston College’s study abroad programs in Ecuador for nearly 20 years.

Connell School faculty are convinced the improved Ecuador program will better prepare nurses, enhancing students’ cultural competence (including thinking on their feet in Spanish) and their abilities in the growing field of community nursing—that is, practice outside the acute-care setting.

“They’ll be more sensitive to the needs of immigrants and refugees, people living in poverty, and those who are different from themselves,” says Donna Cullinan, a clinical assistant professor and community health nurse who leads groups of volunteer nurses on trips to Haiti each year. Adds Read, “These students can be assigned to Spanish-speaking patients in Boston, and they are really marketable when they graduate because of their language skills.”

Read and others say they plan to tweak the curricu-lum over time, for example by partnering with faculty in Quito to identify research projects for Boston College’s student nurses to pursue there.

The number of U.S. students pursuing study abroad has more than tripled over the past two decades, and almost half of Boston College undergraduates have some kind of international experience before graduation. The Connell School has a special academic track for students planning to spend a semester overseas; this year, 31 CSON juniors—more than one-third of the class—have participated through the University’s own or approved programs, venturing to Italy, Greece, South Africa, and other destinations. (Boston College tuition covers most of the costs.) As of now, Ecuador is the only study abroad program featuring clinical nursing.

A thousand hugsDuring the fall, Harvey spent approximately six hours a week at the one-story community health center in the Andean village of Lumbisi, shadowing a nurse and help-ing record health histories, check vital signs, bandage wounds, and give vaccinations. Her second clinical

Top: Jennifer Maraia ’13 assists a clinic nurse weighing a one-year-old girl. Bottom: Siobhan Tellez ’13 shares evening tea with her host family.

Siobhan Tellez ’13 listens to a second-grader’s heart and lungs during a routine check in a local public school with Meghan Thompson-Wilda ’13 and Jennifer Maraia ’13.

9Summer 2012

assignment was at an elementary school, where she taught seven- and eight-year-olds about hand washing, tooth brushing, toilet paper use, and other healthful habits. “Dental hygiene is a huge issue in Ecuador,” Harvey notes. “The children in my class had cavity-ridden teeth.” On the other hand, although they didn’t have much, “The kids had such a happy spirit. Every day I’d walk into the school, I’d get a thousand different hugs.”

Harvey and her classmates felt that kind of warmth from the families who hosted them for four months, too. “My family was welcoming and loving from the moment they picked me up from the airport,” Jennifer Maraia ’13 wrote from Ecuador this spring. “I have never felt so

accepted so instantly. My host mom and I chat, giggle, window shop, and scoff at daily happenings in the same way my real mom and I do.”

For participant Siobhan Tellez ’13, being in Ecuador has reinforced her desire to become a nurse. “Despite the difficulties of communicating past the language bar-rier, and despite having to learn an entire set of customs and etiquette, I’ve never felt more confident in my career choice,” she reflected in an e-mail. “The people I’ve worked with and helped at the clinic [in Tumbaco] have been so kind, understanding, and grateful for the few things I’ve been able to offer. It has made me very excited for the day I become a practitioner who can offer more to people than just a smile and a shot.” ✹

ecuador: condenSed

Any undergraduate interested in a shorter Ecuador experience can enroll in Boston College’s three-week summer course, Global Health Perspectives, which runs in late May and June. Like its semester-long counterpart, this course includes lec-tures, field trips, and family stays; is taught in English; and does not include clinical placements. CSON Clinical Instructor Rosemary Byrne ’72, M.S. ’98, who is leading the summer 2012 course, says “I hope the students will learn about the kinds of medical programs that can move a developing country forward.”

Mary Keeley ’13 administers a vaccination to an 18-month-old boy.

10 Voice

BY MICHAEL J. RAFFERTY

Fulfilling destinyInsights from executive suites

Two years in the making, the landmark Future of Nursing report calls for fundamental changes in the role nurses play in a health care

system transformed by the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Among these is an urgent recommendation that the nursing profession “produce leaders throughout the system, from the bedside to the boardroom.”

That charge is hardly new to graduates of Boston College’s school of nursing, according to Suzanne Boyle ’70, vice president for patient care services at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The faculty and admin-istration at her alma mater “always maintained that Boston College nursing students were destined to be leaders,” she said. “That was an underlying theme to everything we learned.”

Voice spoke with Boyle and four other nursing school alumnae—Jeanette Clough ’82, Mairead Hickey ’72, Cecilia McVey ’72, and Jacqueline Somerville ’80, Ph.D. ’09, who now hold senior positions in hospital executive suites—about nurse leadership lessons they have learned.

“Nurses should be full partners with physicians and other health professionals in redesigning health care in the United States.”

From The Future of Nursing, a report from the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, October 2010

Suzanne Boyle. Photograph: Adrian Mueller

11Summer 2012

Suzanne Boyle ’70vice president for patient care services newyorK-presbyterian weill cornell medical center

Suzanne Boyle says she has the best job in the world. But it is not for the faint of heart. As Vice President for Patient Care Services at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, Boyle oversees more than 2,000 employees in five departments and a budget of $200 million.

Before moving to NewYork-Presbyterian in 2005, Boyle spent more than 30 years at Yale-New Haven Hospital where she provided direct patient care, cre-ated nursing training programs, conducted research on the effectiveness of nursing teams, and participated in the implementation of the hospital’s electronic medical records system. She also earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in nursing from Yale.

But the real life-changing experience came when she was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow in 2004. The fellowship program was designed to prepare a select cadre of nurse executives for leadership roles in shaping the U.S. health care system of the future. “That experience raised my sights,” Boyle said. For three years, she “worked with national health care leaders and addressed big ideas. Many of the ideas about nurses in leadership roles in the Future of Nursing report were first discussed at fellowship meetings.”

The report recommendation that has captured Boyle’s attention is the call for ongoing education and training opportunities for nurses at every stage of their careers. “Half of new nurses leave the field in their first four years,” said Boyle, who has launched nursing residency programs at Yale-New Haven and NewYork-Presbyterian “to stem that tide of outgoing talent.”

“Every nurse has stories about not feeling prepared for the responsibilities of the job, about feeling alone and unsupported,” she said. “We need both new and veteran nurses to be looking for and thinking of new ways to deliver care.”

Jeanette Clough ’82president and chief executive officer mount auburn hospital

Looking at systems to improve patient safety at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jeanette Clough asked her staff to chart what hap-pens after a physician orders medication for a patient.

“It was more than eighty-five steps from order to mouth,” Clough said. “We cut the number of steps to less than half that number. Reducing the number of steps reduces potential errors.”

Clough didn’t have her sights set on being a CEO when she took her first job as a staff nurse at Massachu-setts General Hospital. She spent 13 years at MGH, earning two promotions and two master’s degrees while she was there, then left to become director of nursing at Waltham Hospital in 1988. Barely three years later, she was named CEO.

Waltham Hospital, like many community hospitals in the 1990s, was struggling to survive. Clough cut back some unprofitable services and added revenue-generat-ing programs, stabilizing the institution. That caught the attention of a CEO search committee at Mount Auburn Hospital, where she was hired in 1998.

Despite enormous obstacles, including constricted con-tracts with insurers, bad debt, and competition from the larger Boston hospitals, Clough turned the hospital’s $5.4 million operating deficit in 1998 into a $1.3 million sur-plus in 2000, she said. The surplus has increased every year since.

Jeanette Clough. Photograph: John Gillooly

12 Voice

Using a nurse’s skill at building trust, she tells the hospital staff everything, she said. And she recognizes progress. “We celebrate our accomplishments together. We have a lot of parties,” Clough said. “But my proudest day was the first time that we were able to give bonuses to every single employee. We have paid bonuses to employees every year since 2004.”

Mairead Hickey ’72executive vice president and chief operating officer brigham and women’s hospital

By the numbers, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Mairead Hickey ’72 is responsible for a $2 billion operating budget and approximately one million ambula-tory patient visits. She oversees 12,000 employees and just under a thousand beds at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the nearby Faulkner Hospital. 

In 2010, Hickey was asked to take on the job of COO. At the time, she was chief of nursing, a job she held for five years after moving into the executive ranks at the Brigham, a high-profile academic, medical, and research center; founding member of the Partners HealthCare System; and Harvard Medical School teaching hospital.

Hickey started her career as a staff nurse and nursing instructor at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. She left to spend 12 years at Yale, where she was an associate professor and chair of the graduate program in clini-cal nurse specialists. Meanwhile, she earned her Ph.D. in evaluation and measurement from the University of Connecticut in 1990. 

“As a nurse and a COO, I believe I have an amazing opportunity to create patient-family focused systems of care. It is my responsibility to never lose sight of why we come to work every day: It is all about ensuring that patients and their families receive the very best care with the very best staff. My nursing background influences everything I do as a COO.”  

“My nursing background influences

everything I do as a COO.” —Mairead Hickey ’72

Mairead Hickey. Photograph: John Gillooly

Cecilia McVey. Photograph: John Gillooly

13Summer 2012

At the Brigham, Hickey continues to advocate for the nurse-scientist and the science of patient care. In a health care world that will increasingly demand evi-dence-based care, she sees the nurse-scientist as ideally suited to find that evidence, she said. “If the first step of scientific thinking is observation, then no one is in a bet-ter position to study the efficacy of care and the quality of life trade-offs that may come with it.” Hickey received the Dean Rita P. Kelleher Award from the Connell

School in June 2012. View videos online at www.bc.edu/kelleher

Cecilia McVey ’72associate director for nursing and patient services va boston healthcare systems

“Most patients are not hospitalized for medical care,” said Cecilia McVey, the associate director for nursing and patient services at VA Boston Healthcare Systems. “They can get that in a doctor’s office or clinic. They are hospital-ized because they need nursing care.”

McVey has made her point with “The Other Side of the Bed,” a first-of-its-kind program she launched in 2009 that hires medical students to work as nurses’ aides during the summer between their first and second med school years. “It’s basic training. We like to get them early!” McVey said. “We want these future doctors to understand the nurse’s involvement with each and every patient. We want them to value the nurse’s relationship with the patient as a central component of that patient’s care.”

McVey has learned the value of that relationship herself over a long career at the VA that she began as a nurse’s aide while still a student at Boston College. Hired as a staff nurse after graduation, she moved through a series of nurse-manager positions and in 1999 was named an associate director, part of the VA Boston sys-tem’s four-person executive team.

With responsibility for patient services at all three hos-pitals in the system—Jamaica Plain, Brockton, and West Roxbury—McVey still spends time at patients’ bedsides. “I never forget that our patients are heroes,” she said.

Jacqueline Somerville ’80, Ph.D. ’09senior vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer brigham and women’s hospital

“Nurses see everything,” said Jackie Somerville, recalling her first nursing job at New England Medical Center (NEMC).

“When I saw broken systems, I would say to myself, I could fix that—in about an hour.” The Chief of Nursing at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital since 2011, she said she has “learned that leadership is more than having the authority to change things. It is about serving a broader common purpose.” And that resonates with what she learned as an undergraduate at Boston College.

She would have plenty of opportunities to fix things. Somerville moved into management at NEMC, where she oversaw surgical nursing. In 1998, she took a similar post at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she was soon tapped as interim vice president for patient care ser-vices. Massachusetts General Hospital recruited her from there to serve as associate chief nurse for the MGH Cancer Center. There she worked with colleagues across depart-ments and institutions on projects ranging from space planning to the launch of a patient-family advisory council.

When Somerville returned to Boston College for her Ph.D. in nursing, she wrote her dissertation on the mea-surable benefits of patient trust. “A hospitalized patient is completely out of his comfort zone,” she said. “But when he feels that he is known as a whole person, he begins to feel safe. A nurse who spends time with the patient is the most qualified person to earn his trust.”✹

Jackie Somerville. Photograph: John Gillooly

14 Voice

Richard Ross—registered nurse, Jesuit priest, and Connell School of Nursing instructor—applauds the young person who takes hold of

a dream and pursues a life path unswervingly. But, he adds in a soft voice, “I was not that person.”

As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in the early 1980s, unsure of what he wanted to do or study, Ross happened to take a job at the university hospital’s burn unit, stocking medical supplies. He was struck by how nurses in the unit “literally saved lives every day,” he recalls. He decided to apply to the nursing school at the university.

Ross continued to work part time as a nursing assis-tant at the same hospital while pursuing his B.S.N. After graduating in 1988, he went to work in the bus-tling maternity unit of St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During his 12 years there, he began to seek a deeper religious faith. He looked into volunteering with an overseas Catholic service orga-nization. But a chance meeting with a nurse trained as a spiritual director led him to a weekend Ignatian retreat. A year later, in 2001, he entered the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus.

All Ross’s career choices and paths have been “relat-ed to the circumstances of life,” said the Jesuit. Quiet and unassuming, he wore a blue blazer and tie during an interview in a small third-floor Cushing Hall meet-ing room overlooking the 10-foot bronze sculpture of St. Ignatius Loyola on Higgins Green. “God is in the circumstances,” he said.

Ross was ordained in June 2010 shortly after receiv-

ing his Master of Divinity from Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry. The following spring, he joined the faculty at the Connell School.

Dean Susan Gennaro, who had been contemplating how to connect the school “in a very intentional way” to the University’s Jesuit mission, welcomed Ross with enthusiasm, she said. She was also pleased that his arrival increased gender diversity on a 47-member faculty that includes only three men.

When Ross arrived, Gennaro asked him to look at the school through a Jesuit lens, to help train attention on student formation and social justice. Some weeks

later, he reported that more could be done to address the needs of “the whole student” to help each develop fully as a person, Gennaro said.

Ross also suggested a series of student-faculty lunches during which faculty members would meet with groups of three sophomores, sharing a moment in their lives that helped define them as human beings and professionals. Early in the spring semester, two dozen professors signed up for the program. “Richard has really helped us see more clearly how that kind of care for the student is foundational to being a Jesuit institution,” Gennaro said.

In keeping with the liberal arts tradition, the dean has also asked Ross to begin planning dinners involving nursing professors and faculty from other schools at Boston College. The goal is disciplinary cross-fertiliza-tion, “because that’s the way the world is going, the way it needs to go,” Gennaro said.

As an instructor at Connell, Ross has team-taught

A Jesuit priest at the Connell SchoolBY WILLIAM BOLE

Nursing for others

“Jesuits work in the world … in a lot of ways, the Jesuits are the church’s bridge

to parts of the world where maybe other priests and religious can’t venture.”

—richard ross, s.j.

15Summer 2012

a graduate-level class in nursing ethics (with Pamela Grace), a course in professional nursing (with Stacy Garretty), and a class in physical assessment, the first clinical course nursing students take (with Robin Wood). Students in that class learn how to perform a head-to-toe physical exam and conduct a health inter-view asking routine questions about diet, breathing, sleep patterns, and overall well-being. At the end of the semester, each student administers a 45-minute physical exam to another. According to Wood, they are typically nervous and anxious.

“He brought a great calmness to the situation and made them relax,” she said, noting the encouragement Ross gave to students at each stage of the exam. Wood said one student dropped a note in her mailbox afterward saying, “He was very calming when I started to freak out.”

That Ross would be involved at all in nursing is a reflection of not just his interests but also the Jesuit order. “Jesuits work in the world,” he said. Members of the order can be found in nearly every profession, not just pastoral ministry. “The beauty of it is that, in a lot of ways, the Jesuits are the Church’s bridge to parts of the world where maybe other priests and religious can’t venture,” Ross said.

Ross helped build a bridge to the maternity unit of Georgetown University Hospital, where he worked as a clinical instructor who taught Mother and Child Nursing from 2005 to 2007, during part of his Jesuit formation (typically a 10-year process that involves master’s-level academic study in philosophy, theol-ogy, and ministry; pastoral work; service with a Jesuit

“apostolate” or ministry such as a high school; liv-ing in a Jesuit community; and doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius).

Ross recalled that he made it clear to new moth-ers that the time after delivery was “their own time.” They should set the pace of their care and have quiet moments alone to reflect if they wanted to, he said. He did not wear a clerical collar in the maternity unit; only those who knew the significance of the “S.J.” after the name embroidered on his lab coat were aware of his vocation. Ross said part of his purpose was to help students understand “the sacredness of the moment” when a woman has given birth, and to help birth mothers live in that moment on their terms.

At Georgetown’s School of Nursing and Health Studies, Ross promoted Jesuit identity in other ways. “He helped people think about the community in which they exist, from a Jesuit perspective,” said for-mer Georgetown professor and current Connell Associate Professor Angela Frederick Amar, whose own years at Georgetown overlapped with Ross’s. “With Richard, it’s never ‘I’ll tell you what to do.’ It’s always leading by example and, ‘How do we build community?’”

Asked about his future, Ross seemed pleased to say he really doesn’t know what it will involve. As a Jesuit, he doesn’t decide what he’s going to do or where he’ll be assigned. That is up to the Jesuit provincial. Nevertheless, says Ross, “I do believe my path is going to be a nursing path—probably in ways I cannot imagine.”

God is in the circumstances. ✹

Richard Ross, S.J., guides graduate students through an ethical reasoning case study. Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

16 Voice

Faculty Publications

nancy allen

Allen, N., R. Whittemore, G.D. Melkus, “A Continuous Glucose Monitoring and Problem-solving Intervention to Change Physical Activity Behavior in Women with Type 2 Diabetes: A Pilot Study,” Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics 13, no. 11 (2011): 1091–1099.

angela amar

Amar, A., P.T. Clements, “Psychiatric Forensic Connections: 6 Degrees of Separation,” Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association 17, no. 2 (2011): 110–111.

stacey h. barone

Clarke, P., S.H. Barone, D. Hanna, P.M. Senesac, “Roy’s Adaptation Model,” Nursing Science Quarterly 24, no. 4 (2011): 337–344.

rosanna f. demarco

Gaffney, D.A., R.F. DeMarco, A. Hofmeyer, J.A. Vessey, W. Budin, “Making Things Right: Nurses’ Experiences with Workplace Bullying—A Grounded Theory,” Nursing Research and Practice (2012). DOI: 10.1155/2012/243210

susan a. desanto-madeya

Cannon, S., T. Connelly, S.A. DeSanto-Madeya, J. Fawcett, L.L. Hayman, K. Hickson, H. Lee, “Project Report: Analysis of the Contents of the Journal of Family Nursing (1995–2007),” Journal of Family Nursing 17, no. 2 (2011): 270–271.

Smith, A.R., S. DeSanto-Madeya, J.E. Pérez, E.F. Tracey, S. DeCristofaro, R.L. Norris, S.L. Mukkamala, “How Women with Advanced Cancer Pray: A Report from Two Focus Groups,” Oncology Nursing Forum 39, no. 3 (2012): E310–E316.

william p. fehder

Gennaro, S., W.P. Fehder, “Improving Quality in the Dissemination of Nursing Science,” Aquichan 11, no. 3 (2011): 234–239.

Jane m. flanagan

Flanagan, J.M., L.N. Winters, K. Habin, B. Cashavelly, “Women’s Experiences with Antiestrogen Therapy to Treat Breast Cancer,” Oncology Nursing Forum 39, no. 1 (2012): 70–77.

Flanagan, J.M., “Introducing the International Journal of Nursing Knowledge,” International Journal of Nursing Knowledge 23, no. 1 (2012): 1.

Flanagan, J.M., “The Nurse behind the Label,” International Journal of Nursing Terminologies and Classifications 22, no. 3 (2011): 109.

Flanagan, J.M., “What’s Ranking Got to Do with It?,” International Journal of Nursing Terminologies and Classifications 22, no. 2 (2011): 55.

holly b. fontenot

Haggerty, L.A., J.W. Hawkins, H.B. Fontenot, A. Lewis-O’Connor, “Tools for Screening for Interpersonal Violence: State of the Science,” Violence and Victims 26, no. 6 (2011): 725–737.

Fontenot, H.B., N. Morelock, “HPV in Men is a Women’s Health Issue,” Nursing for Women’s Health 16, no. 1 (2012): 57–65.

16 Voice

abstract

Adding a problem-solving intervention to continuous glucose monitoringCombining continuous glucose monitoring with a 90-minute training ses-sion on problem-solving skills appears to help women with type 2 diabetes make lifestyle changes that improve their health, Assistant Professor Nancy Allen and collaborators from two other nursing schools found in a pilot study reported in the November 2011 Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics.

According to the World Health Organization, between 90 and 95 percent of the estimated 220 million people with diabetes worldwide suffer from type 2 diabetes. Medication, diet, and physical activity are all important to manag-ing and controlling diabetes symptoms. But research indicates that women with type 2 diabetes face more barriers than others to getting consistent exercise to treat their disease.

Allen and her colleagues’ 12-week study followed a small but diverse cohort of women who had suboptimal glucose control and were physically active fewer than two days each week. Equipped with continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and activity monitors, they were randomly assigned to either a control group (who received training for using the CGMs plus a 90-minute education session focused on reducing the risk of common complications of diabetes) or a test group (who got the same training along with a 90-minute session on problem-solving skills that help reduce obstacles to physical activity).

The researchers reported that the test group responded well to problem-solv-ing counseling and showed some improvement in modifying diet, patterns of physical activity, and weight control. They concluded that the combination of CGM and problem solving is a feasible and acceptable intervention to help individuals with type 2 diabetes make important changes in lifestyle.

17Summer 2012

Fantasia, H.C., M.A. Sutherland, H.B. Fontenot, T.J. Lee-St. John, “Chronicity of Partner Violence, Contraceptive Patterns, and Pregnancy Risk,” Contraception (2012). DOI: 10.1016/j.contraception.2012.03.005

susan gennaro

Gennaro, S., W.P. Fehder, “Improving Quality in the Dissemination of Nursing Science,” Aquichan 11, no. 3 (2011): 234–239.

Gennaro, S., “The Future of Nursing: Accomplishments a Year after the Landmark Report,” Journal of Nursing Scholarship 44, no. 1 (2012): 1.

pamela J. grace

Grace, P.J., D.G. Willis, “Nursing Responsibilities and Social Justice: An Analysis in Support of Disciplinary Goals,” Nursing Outlook (2012). DOI: 10.1016/j.outlook.2011.11.004

katherine e. gregory

Morey, J.A., K.E. Gregory, “Nurse-led Education Mitigates Maternal Stress and Enhances Knowledge in the NICU,” MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing 37, no. 3 (2012): 182–191.

Loring, C., K.E. Gregory, B. Gargan, V. LeBlanc, D. Lundgren, J. Reilly, K. Stobo, C. Walker, C. Zaya, “Tub Bathing Enhances Thermoregulation of the Late Preterm Infant,” Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing 41, no. 2 (2012): 171–179.

allyssa l. harris

Harris, A.L., “‘Urban Lit’: Considerations for Understanding What Your Adolescent is Reading,” huffingtonpost.com (2011).

susan s. kelly-weeder

Fantasia, H.C., M.A. Sutherland, S.S. Kelly-Weeder, “Gender Differences in Risky Sexual Behavior among Urban Adolescents Exposed to Violence,” Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-7599.2012.00702.x

Kelly-Weeder, S.S., E. Edwards, “Co-occurring Binge Eating and Binge Drinking in College Women,” Journal for Nurse Practitioners 7, no. 3 (2011): 207–213.

ellen k. mahoney

Hurley, A.C., L. Volicer, E.K. Mahoney, “Mental Status Measurement: Mini-mental State Examination,” in Encyclopedia of Nursing Research, 3rd ed., eds. J. Fitzpatrick and M. Kazer (New York, N.Y.: Springer Publishing Co., 2012): 288–290.

Jablonski, R.A., C. Kassab, A. Kolanowski, D.L. Leslie, E.K. Mahoney, B. Therrien, “Reducing Care-resistant Behaviors during Oral Hygiene in Persons with Dementia,” BMC Oral Health 11, no. 30 (2011): 30.

17Winter 2012

Faculty Publications

abstract

Breast cancer survival therapyMany women undergoing antiestrogen therapy (AET) really dislike pink, CSON Assistant Professor Jane Flanagan and colleagues from Massachu-setts General Hospital found when they conducted focus group interviews with 21 women in AET treatment for breast cancer. “I do not see myself as a victim, and I really hate … the pink ribbons, the bracelets, the walks, the fund-raisers” during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, one participant told Flanagan and her colleagues, whose research appeared in the January issue of Oncology Nursing Forum.

A long-term regimen for breast cancer patients who have been successfully treated for the disease, AET has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence. But for the drug to be successful, “women must adhere to treatment for five to 10 years, often despite distressing side effects, and during which time less contact is made with the health care team,” the authors observe. AET, they point out, “is widely known to cause distressing symptoms that affect daily living, including arthralgias, hot flashes, fatigue, weight gain, decreased libido, and changes in mood and memory.” Often, the symptoms are unpleasant enough that women discontinue treatment.

The researchers’ interviews with 21 women aged 39 to 73 revealed that women shared concerns about “being more than my disease,” getting old before their time, dependence, vulnerability, and “saving face and braving storms for others.”

Flanagan and her colleagues concluded that oncology nurses should be sensitive to women’s concerns about long-term therapy and that health care providers should better “understand women’s perceptions of AET and its effects as a first step in the process of developing interventions to improve care.”

18 Voice

Faculty Publications

18 Voice

sr. callista roy

Roy, S.C., “From a U.S. Nurse Theorist’s View of Person and Good of Society: Dr. Callista Roy,” in Caring: Art and Science, Reflections about Nursing in the 21st Century, ed. C. Monforte Royo, (Catalunya, Spain: Universitat Internacional de Catalunya Press, 2012): PAGE#–PAGE#.

Judith shindul-rothschild

Shindul-Rothschild, J., “Use of Antidepressants in Patients Receiving Nursing Care,” in The Evidence-based Guide to Antidepressant Medications, ed. A.J. Rothschild (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2012): 307–347.

melissa a. sutherland

Coakley, C., P. Bolton, L. Flaherty, L. Kopeski, K. Slifka, M.A. Sutherland, “The Incidence of Metabolic Risk Factors in an Inpatient Psychiatric Setting,” Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services 50, no. 3 (2012): 24–30.

Fantasia, H.C., M.A. Sutherland, S.S. Kelly-Weeder, “Gender Differences in Risky Sexual Behavior among Urban Adolescents Exposed to Violence,” Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-7599.2012.00702.x

Sutherland, M.A., H.C. Fantasia, N. McClain, “Abuse Experiences, Substance Use, and Reproductive Health in Women Seeking Care at an Emergency Department,” Journal of Emergency Nursing (2011). DOI: 10.1016/j.jen.2011.09.011

Sutherland, M.A., H.C. Fantasia, “Successful Research Recruitment Strategies in a Study Focused on Abused Rural Women at Risk for Sexually Transmitted Infections,” Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1542-2011.2011.00134.x

Fantasia, H.C., M.A. Sutherland, H.B. Fontenot, T.J. Lee-St. John, “Chronicity of Partner Violence, Contraceptive Patterns, and Pregnancy Risk,” Contraception (2012). DOI: 10.1016/j.contraception.2012.03.005

mary e. thompson

Thompson, M.E., J. Jenkins, A. Smucker, S. Smithwick, D. Groopman, L.M. Pastore, “Acupuncturist Perceptions of Serving as a Clinical Trial Practitioner,” Complementary Therapies in Medicine (2012). DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2012.01.002

Judith a. vessey

Vessey, J.A., R.L. DiFazio, T.D. Strout, “Increasing Meaning in Measurement: A Rasch Analysis of the Child Adolescent Teasing Scale (CATS), Nursing Research 61, no. 3 (2012): 159–170.

Vessey, J.A., V. Tzareva, “Addressing Bullying in the Nursing Workforce,” Journal of the Russian Nursing Association 4, no. 12 (2012): 8–9.

Gaffney, D.A., R.F. DeMarco, A. Hofmeyer, J.A. Vessey, W. Budin, “Making Things Right: Nurses’ Experiences with Workplace Bullying—A Grounded Theory,” Nursing Research and Practice (2012). DOI: 10.1155/2012/243210

Vessey, J.A., “Bullying and the Family,” in Encyclopedia of Family Health, eds. M. Craft-Rosenberg and S. Pehler (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2011), 120–121.

Vessey, J.A., “The Last Slice of Cheese,” Nursing Research 60, no. 5 (2011): 285.

danny g. willis

Willis, D.G., “A Clinical Translation of the Research Article Titled ‘Adolescents’ Experiences with Uroxide,’” Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association 17, no. 2 (2011): 124–126.

Grace, P.J., D.G. Willis, “Nursing Responsibilities and Social Justice: An Analysis in Support of Disciplinary Goals,” Nursing Outlook (2012). DOI: 10.1016/j.outlook.2011.11.004

barbara e. wolfe

Wolfe, B.E., E.D. Metzger, A.E. Whittaker, D.C. Jimerson, “Eating Disorders,” in Primary Care: A Collaborative Practice, 4th ed., eds. T.M. Buttaro, J. Trybulski, P.P. Bailey, and J. Sandberg-Cook (St. Louis, MO: Elsevier, 2012): 1399–1400.

Wolfe, B.E., D.C. Jimerson, A.T. Smith, P.K. Keel, “Serum Amylase in Bulimia Nervosa and Purging Disorder: Differentiating the Association with Binge Eating Versus Purging Behavior,” Physiology & Behavior 104, no. 5 (2011): 684–686.

lichuan ye

Ye, L., A. Malhotra, J. Arnedt, M.S. Aloia, “Gender Differences in Adherence to Positive Airway Pressure Treatment in Obstructive Sleep Apnea,” Sleep: Journal of Sleep and Sleep Disorders Research 34 (2001): A309.

william f. connellschool of nursing

would you liKe to . . .

update your clinical skills?refresh your medical-surgical knowledge?change careers?

The Connell School’s Continuing Education

program offers individual classes and

certificate programs in fields designed

to advance nursing practice and careers.

Make your own schedule and take the

courses that fit your needs and goals.

For a full list of courses, a calendar of open houses, or to register, visit www.bc.edu/ce

summer courses include: » Adult Health Assessment » Essentials of Initiating Clinical Research™ » Forensics II » Transitioning into a Career in Clinical Research

fall courses include: » Career Transition for Nurses » Central Line Therapy » Conversational Medical Spanish I and II » Health Care Statistics » Interpreting EKGs I and II » Peripheral IV Therapy » RN Refresher Update in Nursing I and II » Suturing Workshops » Transitioning into a Career in Clinical Research » Victimology

online courses include: » Medical Math » Safe Prescribing

continuinge d u c at i o n

140 commonwealth avenuechestnut hill, ma 02467www.bc.edu/cson

non-profit org.u.s. postage paid

boston, mapermit #55294

Seeking public policy makers and shapers

Are you—or have you ever been—a school nurse, a legislator, or a member of a local board of health? Have you worked in any way to make, shape, or advocate on behalf of public policy?

If so, Voice is interested in hearing your story—and sharing your experiences and

observations with other alumni in an upcoming magazine feature. Please send

your name, e-mail address, phone number, and a list of your employers, job titles,

and relevant experience in public policy to csonalum@bc.edu.

We look forward to hearing from you.

william f. connellschool of nursing

voice