Jacqueline Sly ’88, M.S.N, RN, FNP, comes to Boston College as a clinical instructor with specialties in medical/surgical care, pediatrics, rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, and ventilated patients, but said her passion is “Teaching students. Teaching patients. Teaching students how to teach patients.” An adjunct faculty member at Regis College in Weston, Mass., since 2008 (and before that at Quincy College), Sly has been a part-time clinical faculty member at Boston College since 2011.
In her new role, she is teaching a pharmacology course and supervising students at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Sly delivered acute care for years until she realized she wanted to help patients earlier in their diseases. “That’s when I decided to become a nurse practitioner,” she recalled. She earned her master’s degree from Regis in 2011, and currently sees patients as an urgent care nurse practitioner at Charles River Medical Associates in Framingham, Mass., and is a staff nurse at Newton-Wellesley. Noting the national need for more nurse educators, Sly hopes eventually to pursue research on problem-based learning, a teaching style that connects theory to practice.
—by Debra Bradley Ruder, photograph by Caitlin Cunningham