Above: Regan Marooney '18, Nicolette Pellicane '18, and Emily Harvey '16

Many in the Connell School community are caring for patients and families afflicted with coronavirus disease. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it provides an overview of what many with ties to CSON are doing each day to combat the spread of COVID-19, and to care for the affected and their families.

Thank you for all that you are doing.

Dictionary definition: COVID-19

A new name for a new disease, COVID­-19 is an abbreviation for novel coronavirus disease 2019, a new strain in a family of viruses that had not previously been identified in humans. Merriam-Webster’s has revised its definition of COVID–19, adding novel to its entry to indicate the virus is new. 

In the media: Nadia Abuelezam

Affecting policy related to COVID-19

Joyce Edmonds

As chair-elect of the American Public Health Association Nursing Section, Associate Professor Joyce Edmonds provided state affiliates with information about federal funding allocated to local public health authorities. She advocated that it be used to hire public health nurses at the front lines of case identification, contact investigation, and support for families in quarantine.  

She also co-authored the article “A Call to Action for Public Health Nurses During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in the journal Public Health Nursing.

Dorothy Jones

Professor Dorothy Jones is working with a team at Massachusetts General Hospital on a variety of measures, including evaluating the impact of the current crisis on the nursing workforce and its many roles. By repurposing the Professional Practice Work Environment Inventory and evaluating Nurses and Therapies within MGH Patient Care Services, Jones’s team can study the impact of COVID-19 on the work environment.

Monica O'Reilly-Jacob

Assistant Professor Monica O’Reilly-Jacob and her research colleagues are working to fast track a new nurse practitioner (NP) policy project now that several states have lifted restrictions for the duration of the COVID-19 state of emergency to allow NPs to practice fully. They are taking this opportunity to look at NP contributions during crises and how full-practice authority changes NP practice.

From the front lines

Faculty expertise

Faculty expertise

Alumni leadership

Star stained glass

Stacy Hutton Johnson, Ph.D. ’15, is chief nurse at Boston Hope, a thousand-bed medical center constructed inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for post-acute COVID-19 patients and homeless patients with COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization in an acute care facility. 

Christine Grady

Christine Grady, M.S. ’78, a nurse-bioethicist who is married to Anthony Fauci—director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—is chief of Bioethics and section head of Human Subjects Research at the National Institutes of Health. She played a major role in the early fight against AIDS in the 1980s.

John Welch

John Welch, M.S. ’12, a senior nurse anesthetist at Boston Children’s Hospital, is overseeing the 1,000 public health workers in the Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative. These investigators reach out to the contacts of confirmed positive COVID-19 patients to help those who have been potentially exposed to the virus. Read more in the Boston Globe. 

Nahoko Harada

Nahoko Harada, Ph.D. ’15, is chief of research and training in Japan’s Primary Care Association Post-Disaster Aid Project, where she does disaster planning.

Adelene Egan

Adelene Egan ’18 is an ER nurse at New York Presbyterian/Cornell Hospital who also is capturing caregiving during the pandemic by photographing her colleagues. Her series, Faces of the Frontlines, was featured by NBC News 4 New York and Spectrum News NY 1.

Eileen Searle

Eileen Searle ’06, Ph.D. ’20, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, obtained a one-day license to marry two co-workers in MGH’s Ether Dome in March—after which they went back to COVID testing. The wedding received coverage in the Boston Globe.

Aristotle Boslet

Aristotle Boslet ’18 says that he’d rather be “nowhere else” than on his unit at Beth Israel Lahey Health, which was turned into a COVID-19 floor. He says “This pandemic has really put our profession to the test, but as a BC grad I feel equipped to tend to my patients’ physical and emotional needs. All of the content I learned while at BC has in some way been applicable to our response and current clinical practice.”

Night-shift nurses at NYU Langone hold signs that say "We stay here for you, please stay home for us."

Julia Klein ’18 (middle row, second from left) and fellow night-shift nurses at NYU Langone in Manhattan transformed their medicine/oncology unit into an acute COVID+ center in March. She said the photo truly embodies the Jesuit-inspired goal of living as “men and women for others.”

Elizabeth Byrne

Elizabeth Byrne ’17 is working in emergency medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Students

Amy Delaney

Ph.D. student Amy Delaney helped put Department of Public Health plans in place at Franciscan Children’s, a pediatric post-acute health provider in Boston. She also cares for patients at Roslindale Pediatric Associates.

Kathryn Ferguson

Kathryn Ferguson ’20 cares for residents in Fuller Village, Milton, an independent senior living facility, in April. Clinical Assistant Professor Donna Cullinan has been running the Fuller Village clinic to care for patients with chronic or urgent conditions who are not being seen in an office setting due to the pandemic.

Jane Hopkins Walsh

Ph.D. candidate Jane Hopkins Walsh, M.S. ’87, a longtime pediatric nurse practitioner at Boston Children’s Hospital, is working with patients with complex needs who cannot be triaged remotely. As a Spanish-speaking provider, she works with populations who have high COVID+ rates, helping children and adolescents understand not only their own health but the risks facing the adults in their communities during the pandemic.

Year of the Nurse 2020

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