Celebrating Nurses Week

Guest Blogger:

Joan Bardsley MBA, RN, CDE, FAADE
Assistant Vice President, Nursing and Research Integration

Nurses Week starts this Wednesday, May 6th. The WHO has declared 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife in honor of Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday. I find it somewhat fortuitous considering the role nursing is playing in the pandemic.

On a normal day, nurses are heroes. But right now, during this COVID-19 crisis, the sacrifice and dedication is even more deserving of recognition. A simple thanks for what they do every day and especially now is so important. Our MHRI nurses have shown incredible flexibility and tenacity to ensure our research participants are safe. Our nurses are supporting COVID-19 projects that will help us learn more about this pandemic in the future. In addition, many have volunteered for projects to call associates with testing results and advising on follow up. It is gratifying that so many are having the opportunity to learn about what our nurses do in general and how they contribute to research.

Below are two highlights of our great MHRI nurses doing what they do best: helping.

Maureen McNulty was redeployed from MHRI to MWHC Occupational Health a little over a month ago. It was pretty chaotic when she first arrived because a formal process had not yet been established for communicating and evaluating COVID-19 associate testing results. However fast forward three weeks, and they are  using an efficient, multi-system process to track, report & return our associates to work after testing or quarantine. She occasionally donned her quality assurance hat to provide feedback on how to improve processes & documentation! During this crisis, Occupational Health has expanded its hours to accommodate our associates, so it has been interesting to return to working evenings & weekends, which she haven’t done in 20 years! All in all, she feels very grateful for the opportunity to support-- in some small way-our incredible MWHC workforce during this challenging time. She is really proud of the  team!

Maureen McNulty (center) with other nurses working in Occupational Health

Terry Moriarty

MedStar Health Research Institute’s Medical and Surgical Research Network research nurses Terry Moriarty, Kristin Garman, and Melissa McLawhorn have been working together with the rest of the MedStar team to offer patients diagnosed with COVID-19 the opportunity to participate in research studies. These studies are varied and include therapeutic drug trials, biologic sample collection to better understand the disease and develop testing assays, plasma transfusions, retrospective chart reviews for data points, and imaging studies for machine learning to help future patients. Our research nurses are working at all hours to obtain informed consent, administer research drugs, obtain imaging, draw labs, and so much more. The research nurse team is excited that MedStar has these opportunities available for patients with COVID-19 to be able to participate in research to improve outcomes and that they can play a key role in helping to treat this disease and serve the community. They also want to give a shout out to the staff nurses who are taking care of the research patients, “we couldn’t be successful without your help!”  

Sue Cranford, RN, Jennifer Latteri, BSN, RN, CCRC, and Rachel Campbell, RN, were quick to heed the call and sign-up to assist Occupational Health in making phone calls to COVID positive MedStar employees. All three RNs worked weekends, day and evening hours and adjusted their research work hours to accommodate the request.
“I was surprised by the number of people that did not think they would be positive due to minimal symptoms, and at the varying symptoms that were reported. I am so appreciative of the fact that I was able to help out in these uncertain times,” said Sue Cranford, RN.
Rachel Campbell, RN, was also happy to help Occupational Health and, at the same time, was able to successfully enroll patients in two MUMH inpatient cardiology studies.
 

Rachel Campbell