Voice, Winter 2018

Winter 2018

Closing the HPV vaccination gap with a mobile app Assistant Professor Holly Fontenot explores how handheld devices can promote young people’s healthy behaviors.

from the dean susan gennaro

Dear Friends,

voice dean Susan Gennaro

I extend New Year’s greetings to

editor

you and the warmest of wishes to

Maureen Dezell

members of the Connell School community as we embark on new beginnings in 2018.

I am very pleased to share with you the winter edition of Voice, an issue I find compelling in its range of coverage. These pages include reports on new faculty and a new associate dean for Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

research, promising technology that aims to change risky health

managing editor Tracy Bienen

art director Diana Parziale

graphic designer Christine Hunt

contributors Timothy Gower Zachary Jason Judy Rakowsky John Shakespear

behaviors, and new approaches when addressing issues such as

photographers

diversity and inclusivity. Our news section, once again, brings

Caitlin Cunningham

you up to date on our community’s most recent awards, honors,

Lee Pellegrini

and achievements.

Voice presents snapshots and portraits of Connell School students, faculty, and alumni at work. Among the things that impress me most about the school is how focused our community is on the future, how in-step they are with these rapidly changing times.

I hope you find this issue as impressive and promising as I do as you move forward in the new year.

Yours,

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

Letters and comments are welcome: csonalum@bc.edu Communications Specialist William F. Connell School of Nursing Boston College 140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

cover Susan Gennaro Dean

Artwork: iStock.com/studiocasper, Christine Hunt Story begins page 6.

contents

4 6 Clockwise from above: Closing the HPV vaccination gap Artwork: iStock.com/pinstock, ExtraDryRain, Christine Hunt

Marla Weston speaks at Boston College Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

Building an inclusive nursing school Illustration: ImageZoo/Alamy Stock Photo

Associate Dean for Research Christopher Lee Photograph: Lee Pellegrini

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Winter 2018 news

4 Faculty awards, accolades, and honors. American Nurses Association Enterprise Chief Executive Officer Marla Weston delivers the October Pinnacle lecture.

Features

6

Closing the HPV vaccination gap with a mobile app Assistant Professor Holly Fontenot explores how handheld devices can promote young people’s healthy behaviors.

10 Building an inclusive nursing school Learning to respond to patients and caregivers of different cultures is key to a CSON education.

achievements

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A new Associate Dean for Research Heart disease researcher Christopher Lee joins Connell.

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Welcome, new faculty Newcomers bring expertise in rare endocrine diseases, eating disorders, mindfulness, and infant feeding to Boston College.

14 Faculty publications

www.bc.edu/voice

boston college william f. connell school of nursing

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news by john shakespear

Faculty and staff

Faculty spotlight Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess (below left) served as program director for the Boston College Homicide Forum, a daylong, multidisciplinary conference hosted by the Connell School, the Northeastern University Atypical Homicide Research Group, and Boston College Law School that was held at BC Law in October.

During the annual CSON community health service trip to Haiti in January, Clinical Assistant Professor Donna Cullinan and Anne Zlevor, M.A. ’08 (STM), M.S. ’11 (CSON), cared for Anderson Destine, an infant with a rare skull defect that, if untreated, would become fatal.

Learn more about CSON involvement in his medical journey from Haiti to Miami and back at www.bc.edu/anderson

Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham Photograph: Patrick Harbron/Netflix

That same month, a fictionalized version of Burgess turned up on Netflix in Mindhunter, a new crime drama that portrays the trailblazing work of crime victim expert Dr. Wendy Carr, a character based on Burgess played by actor Anna Torv (above right), and FBI special investigators John E. Douglas and Robert Ressler.

During the 1970s, the three developed and established a model for the criminal profiling of serial killers. Collaborators for close to 10 years, they eventually published Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes (1992). Douglas and writer Mark Olshaker recall the investigators’ work in the 1995 book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, the basis for much of the Netflix series. Burgess and Douglas also published Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives in 1988.

In late October, Burgess spoke in detail to the Huffington Post and Pacific Standard magazine about Mindhunter. While impressed with how her and her colleagues’ work is portrayed in the series, Burgess told Pacific Standard: “What everyone gets wrong is that I was not a psychologist, I was a nurse. Speaking of women having trouble in certain fields, the nurse is not as well respected for her knowledge and background in health care and certainly in the forensic field. From that standpoint, as a forensic nurse, I was unique in bringing my expertise in terms of health and all of the areas of health to bear on legal issues.”

Mindhunter was renewed in November for a second season. Learn more about Burgess at www.bc.edu/livinglegend

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voice | winter 2018

Photograph courtesy of Donna Cullinan

Anderson Destine with his mother, Judith, following his surgery.

The American Academy of Nursing inducted Associate Professor Jane Flanagan as a fellow at its annual conference in Washington, DC, in October.

Assistant Professor Holly Fontenot received the 2017 Award of Excellence in Scholarly Education from the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses at its national convention, held in New Orleans in June.

Connell School Dean and Professor Susan Gennaro received a $3.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health/ National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities to study a prenatal care intervention for pregnant minority women experiencing emotional distress.

TELL US YOUR NEWS csonalum@bc.edu

Alumni Susan Lee, Ph.D. ’05, and Cecilia McVey ’72 were inducted as fellows into the American Academy of Nursing at its annual conference in Washington, DC, in October. Lee is senior nurse scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. McVey is associate director, nursing and patient services, at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

Photograph: Courtesy of Massachusetts General Hospital Photography

Professor Dorothy Jones, Gaurdia Banister, Lisa Connell McNamara ’89, Sarah McNamara ’16, and Boston College benefactor Margot C. Connell at a June celebration of Banister’s appointment to the Connell-Jones chair at MGH.

Massachusetts General Hospital has established the Connell-Jones Endowed Chair in Nursing and Patient Care Research in honor of Dorothy Jones, a Connell School professor and director emerita of the Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research at MGH. Boston College benefactor and honorary degree recipient Margot C. Connell endowed the position, which is to be awarded to a senior faculty member in recognition of his or her pivotal leadership within the MGH Department of Nursing. Gaurdia Banister, a professor at the MGH Institute for

Health Professions and director of the Munn Center, is the inaugural holder of the Connell-Jones chair.

Associate Professor Susan Kelly-Weeder was named the Connell School’s Associate Dean for Graduate Programs.

The Connell School’s Senior Technology Consultant, Thomas Wahhab, celebrated his 25th anniversary at Boston College.

While at BC, Wahhab earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Woods College of Advancing Studies and is now studying in its cybersecurity master’s program.

Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

The National Black Nurses Association presented its 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award to Deborah Washington (above), M.S. ’93, Ph.D. ’12, during its Annual Institute and Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, in August. Washington is director of diversity for nursing and patient care services at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Students The American Nurses Association’s National Advisory Committee of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration appointed Ph.D. student Carine Luxama to its Minority Fellowship Program for 2017–18.

Events

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (center) joined first-year master’s students (clockwise from left) Yui Kitayamai, Madeline Kennard, Lilli Griggs, Emily Pepe, Michaela Johnson, and Arvia Sutandi at a South Boston flu clinic organized by Clinical Instructors Dorean Behney Hurley and Beth McNutt-Clarke.

Photograph: Arvia Sutandi

Marla Weston, chief executive officer of the American Nurses Association Enterprise, spoke at the Connell School’s fall Pinnacle Lecture in October. Learn about her thoughts on nursing leadership at www.bc.edu/weston

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Closing the HPV vaccination gap with a mobile app

By Timothy Gower

Artwork: iStock.com/pinstock/ExtraDryRain, Christine Hunt

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Holly Fontenot had a “total lightbulb moment” in 2014. The Connell School of Nursing (CSON) assistant professor, who’s spent most of her academic career focused on women’s health, is also a part-time nurse practitioner and nurse scientist at the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center, where she works with at-risk lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) adolescents and young adults.

F

ontenot had convened a focus group of young men in hopes of finding out why so few were getting injections of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which can prevent certain cancers in males.

Some participants told her they hadn’t heard of the vaccine or thought it was just for young women. Others said they couldn’t afford the shots.

Still others admitted they were embarrassed to ask for the vaccine.

Then one young man said, “I won’t even order a pizza unless I can do it with an app. I don’t want to talk to anybody.” Heads around the room nodded.

Fontenot realized then, she says, that promoting healthy behaviors in young people today requires a new approach. “They live, en masse, online,” says Fontenot. That seemed to her particularly true of the young men who have sex with men (YMSM), a large segment of the patient population she treats in her clinical work at the Borum Health Center on Kneeland Street in Boston, which is part of Fenway Health, a community health center that has long served LGBTQ patients from Boston’s neighborhoods. Fontenot came to believe that creative use of mobile technology could be key to convincing more YMSM to seek out the vaccine.

She now thinks that the same approach could help eliminate other gaps in meeting basic health needs that are common among at-risk populations. “Can we tap into that online community and get them to engage in real-world actions, like showing up at a clinic?” asks Fontenot. “We’re going to see if that’s possible.” She is currently principal investigator for a two-year study funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in which she is conducting more focus groups and overseeing the development of a mobile application, or app, which she hopes will help increase the number of YMSM who receive the HPV vaccine.

Meanwhile, Fontenot is playing key roles in two other federally funded initiatives: a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) effort to develop tools and strategies to reduce the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in YMSM; and an effort, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Harvard Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), to eliminate barriers that keep YMSM from receiving a medication known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which lowers the risk for acquiring HIV.

A member of the CSON faculty since 2004, Fontenot has worked as a labor and delivery nurse and spent much of the first phase of her academic career focused on teaching and women’s health. (She recently received the

Holly Fontenot Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

boston college william f. connell school of nursing

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Award of Excellence in Scholarly Education from the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.) She served as director of the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Program from 2007 until last January. Teaching is still on her schedule; in spring 2018 she’ll co-teach Current Issues in Sexual Health Care with Assistant Professor Nadia Abuelezam.

However, Fontenot is deeply focused on research these days. Her early work as a nurse scientist concentrated on sexual health in young women.

But she soon became frustrated. “I felt like I was missing a big part of the picture,” recalls the native Californian, who received both a master’s degree in 2000 and a Ph.D. in 2013 from CSON. When Fontenot volunteered her services at the Borum and turned her attention to the sexual health of young males, she soon discovered that misconceptions and other barriers left many vulnerable to life-threatening diseases. She is now squarely focused on finding ways to curb those threats.

F

ontenot became interested in the HPV vaccine after it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006. One of the most common sexually transmitted infections, HPV can cause cervical cancer and other gynecological malignancies in women. But HPV promotes cancers in males too—including anal, penile, and oropharyngeal (mouth and throat) malignancies.

(According to some projections, the annual number of oropharyngeal cancers will surpass cases of cervical cancer by 2020.)

In 2009, the FDA approved the HPV vaccine for young males. But when Fontenot tracked national

Artwork: iStock.com/3283197d_273, shutterstock/inroad, Christine Hunt

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voice | winter 2018

data, she saw that few were receiving it. That’s when she began conducting focus groups with young males and found that most didn’t know about the vaccine or thought HPV was only a concern for women. When Fontenot and some of her colleagues reviewed medical records at the Borum Center, they found that just eight percent of the males had received at least one dose of the vaccine. (Two doses are required to protect boys aged 9 to 14; three doses for males aged 15 to 26.)

“If you look at the science, young gay men have probably the absolute lowest level of [HPV] vaccine rates as compared to any other group,” says Fontenot. That’s at least partly because the vaccine has an image problem, says one of Fontenot’s frequent collaborators, Gregory Zimet, Ph.D., a professor of pediatrics and clinical psychology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, who has conducted extensive research on attitudes about the HPV vaccine. “There is a common perception that the reason males should get the vaccine is to prevent HPV infections in girls,” says Zimet. “But YMSM don’t sleep with girls.”

Moreover, many of the patients Fontenot treats are homeless. “They have a lot of unique challenges and low levels of support—from family or society at large,” says Fontenot. Many are too busy finding a place to sleep to spend much time thinking about their health care, she says. Add the many other barriers she discovered in her focus groups, says Fontenot, and it’s hardly surprising that vaccination rates among YMSM are so low.

Fontenot has embraced the challenge of helping close the vaccination gap and others she sees in her clinical practice. “The fundamental issue that informs Holly’s work is a commitment to

underserved populations,” says Kenneth Mayer, M.D., medical research director and co-chair of The Fenway Institute, a research arm of Fenway Health. Fontenot meets regularly with Mayer to discuss research ideas and the two have teamed with Penn State Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health Joshua Rosenberger, Ph.D., and Zimet to conduct the NIAID-funded initiative to develop and test an app to increase the number of YMSM who receive the HPV vaccination. “Holly is a phenomenal collaborator,” says Zimet. “She’s really smart and creative, but what sets her apart is her energy and positive outlook.”

The goal of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases study is to create an app that promotes awareness of the HPV vaccine and makes it easier for young men to get it. Functions that are under development would help them make appointments at clinics, for example, and apply for insurance or financial assistance to cover costs. Once the study is completed next year, the app will be promoted on a social networking app.

To find out what users might want and value in such an app, Fontenot has already conducted online focus groups that included young men in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. “The conversations were really rich. We got all kinds of great ideas,” says Fontenot, who suspects that participants may be more willing to share details about their intimate lives when typing on a computer or smartphone than seated at a conference table in a roomful of people.

Fontenot learned about conducting online focus groups from Rosenberger. Her newfound expertise, along with her skills working with

young people, has raised her profile and increased demand for her as a scientific collaborator. She’s running online focus groups that will contribute key data to the CDC effort to develop tools and strategies for preventing HIV in YMSM. In that study, she’s collaborating with colleagues at the CDC, The Fenway Institute (where she now holds an adjunct faculty appointment), and the University of Chicago’s NORC research institute.

The goal of these focus groups will be to learn about the young participants’ awareness of HIV risk, access to sex education and methods for preventing HIV (such as condoms), and other relevant issues. Fontenot plays a similar role in the NIH/CFAR study, which will test whether YMSM are more likely to take the HIV-preventive drug combination known as PrEP if they have access to a “peer navigator,” which is a mentor or counselor who can provide emotional support and help them with practical matters such as filling prescriptions.

PrEP, sold under the brand name Truvada, has been shown to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV by more than 90 percent. “We know HIV disproportionately affects youth and YMSM,” says Fontenot.

Expanding the use of PrEP, she believes, “can transform HIV prevention.”

Fontenot is already helping to transform young lives. One of the greatest rewards of her work in the clinic, she says, is seeing her patients get off the street, find jobs, and f lourish. In her new and evolving role as a nurse scientist, she hopes to find innovative ways to eliminate health disparities that can prevent that from happening. “I want to keep pushing the science forward,” says Fontenot. “And keep young kids healthy.” ▪

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Building an nursing school

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voice | winter 2018

by judy rakowsky Illustrations: ImageZoo/Alamy Stock Photo

Throughout her nine-year tenure at the Connell School, Dean Susan Gennaro has made diversity and inclusion a strategic priority.

Developing an environment that “fosters the success of a diverse, culturally sensitive faculty, staff, and student body” was one of the five strategic aims Gennaro set when she arrived on campus in 2008.

This goal was in keeping with the framework set forth that same year by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, which aimed to “facilitate the attainment of cultural competence” into baccalaureate nursing education.

One of the first initiatives was Keys to Inclusive Leadership in Nursing (KILN), a program the Connell School launched in 2009 under the leadership of Associate Professor Catherine Read that has since provided stipends and academic and professional support to more than 400 students from backgrounds underrepresented in professional nursing. Keenly aware of the long-established link between culturally competent nursing care and better patient health outcomes, the school has also expanded linguistic and cultural immersion opportunities in the Caribbean and Central and South America, encouraging students to take part in them. In the spring of 2009, the nursing school established an active Diversity Advisory Board made up of faculty, alumni, and local and national nurse leaders.

Recently, CSON leadership, faculty, staff, and students have expressed heightened interest in finding innovative ways to promote cultural competence on campus, especially in light of racial strife throughout the country and related tensions at Boston College. At a time when at-risk, multicultural patient populations are growing rapidly, their needs are becoming ever more urgent and complex, and the Connell School is working to educate nursing professionals who are fully prepared to respond to those needs.

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TAKING THE PULSE Recent Connell School surveys have indicated that ideas and definitions of diversity and inclusion are constantly evolving.

According to Assistant Professor Tam Nguyen, chair of CSON’s Diversity Advisory Board, a student survey conducted during the 2015–16 academic year showed marked differences between how white students and their black, Hispanic American, and Asian American classmates experience their undergraduate years at Boston College. As compared to white students, a lower percentage of students of color characterized the CSON environment as inclusive. “While disheartening, this kind of discrepancy between white students and students of color is consistent with findings from assessments at schools of nursing across the country,” notes Nguyen.

Inspired in part by student survey data, CSON leadership, working with Nguyen; Julianna González-McLean, assistant dean of Student Services, Diversity, and Inclusion; and Tracey West, Boston College Law School’s associate dean for External Relations, Diversity, and Inclusion, decided to assess cultural awareness and sensitivity among Connell faculty and staff. When it came to cultural competence, for example, faculty and staff generally appreciated the values shared by people and cultures, but sometimes minimized more specific ethnic, cultural, and religious differences that significantly enhance or impede communication across cultures. As minority members of the Connell community can attest, these unacknowledged distinctions make a difference.

an opportunity for black, Hispanic, Asian American, and Native American prospective students to explore academic and extracurricular life at Boston College. That initial positive experience convinced Jackson to enroll at Boston College, but it didn’t prepare her for some of the ways in which she would feel out of place once she started her first academic year. Her first year, she says, “I didn’t see a lot of people like me.”

In some of her classes outside CSON, Jackson says, she felt singled out. Sometimes, for example, she was asked to express “black opinion” in class. During a class discussion about the legacy of slavery in the US, she recalls, one student said, “It happened a hundred years ago; I don’t see why I should feel guilty for their problems.” When the professor encouraged discussion, all eyes turned to Jackson—“as if slavery and its effects are just black issues and not a societal issue for America in general,” she says.

For Jackson, who had always topped her high school class without trouble, academics were a shock as well. Like many students who come from underresourced secondary schools, Jackson had not had the opportunity to take courses such as advanced biology in high school, and she struggled in Anatomy I—a course that is a crucial building block to success in the nursing program.

It was a challenge to compete with classmates who already had a rigorous background in advanced biology.

“I had been a top student, but Anatomy slapped me in my face and forced me to seek help,” Jackson says. At first, she “I didn’t see a lot of people like me,” says thought she could just study harder or change her habits to Raquel Jackson ’19 of her first academic regain her footing. Priscilla Nyarko ’18, the Connell School’s year. She felt singled out. newly minted undergraduate student outreach coordinator for diversity, encouraged Jackson to look for e-mails about KILN, and Jackson discovered that When Raquel Jackson ’19 came to campus in fall 2015 from a González-McLean had set up peer tutoring sessions and study public high school in multicultural North Miami, she experienced halls for Anatomy I. With the support of these sessions, Jackson a series of culture shocks. As an admitted student, she had visited passed the course. Nyarko also told Jackson that she could seek campus as a guest of the Keith A. Francis AHANA Weekend— funds for non-tuition expenses from KILN and the Montserrat

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Office in University Mission and Ministry, which helped her cover essential non-tuition expenses such as a stethoscope for her clinical classes. Jackson’s experiences in Anatomy and KILN demonstrate how students can succeed when difference is respected, rather than downplayed or dismissed.

MOVING FORWARD

classrooms and conference rooms. The website features information on campus resources, academic support for students, tools for self-ref lection, activities for the classroom, terminology, and articles that feature the history of diverse populations.

To support minority nursing students, González-McLean and Nguyen have met with members of each undergraduate class to gather feedback on how to improve diversity and inclusion. They have also systematized the study halls and peer tutoring program to help students succeed in Anatomy I and Pathophysiology.

The two student inclusivity surveys led the Connell School to make At both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the Connell School several changes during the 2016–17 academic year. Gonzálezis changing its curriculum to ensure that students experience an McLean and Nguyen used the survey results to spark conversations, inclusive learning environment and are well equipped to care for guide workshops and other professional development trainings, patients from all backgrounds. In the first-year seminar, the and expand diversity-related resources for students, faculty, and curriculum was overhauled to include issues of diversity. The staff. West presented the school has also launched SCRUBS findings of the culture (Sophomore Connell Retreat for assessment to faculty and Undergraduate B.S. Students), staff and solicited their ideas which is now a mandatory, on how to work together to one-credit course for sophomore make progress during the nursing students. Similar to the 2017–18 academic year. The first-year seminar, SCRUBS Diversity Advisory Board is includes diversity and inclusion working with other campus topics. Additionally, a one-day experts to educate faculty and retreat is planned for graduate staff on the effect that students in January 2018. glossing over or minimizing “Students are telling us that learning cultural, ethnic, and religious about diversity and inclusion is best differences can have, even done through conversation and when it is unintentional. active learning,” Nguyen says. For School leadership and faculty the advisory board, she notes, the are also working to respond goal is to strike the right balance with compassion when by expanding CSON’s curriculum students want to talk about without overburdening it. current events involving race, gender, and sexual orientation.

“We’re doing all of this because Workshops on such topics as developing and maintaining an “unconscious bias” and environment that supports inclu“incorporating sexual sivity and fosters the success of a CSON students succeed in a supportive orientation and gender diverse, culturally sensitive faculty, identity into our curriculum staff, and student body is one of our environment when difference is respected, and research” are now key strategic aims,” says Gennaro, rather than downplayed or dismissed. regularly folded into faculty whose ongoing research focuses on and staff meetings. the health of pregnant women of With an online platform provided by the University’s Center for Teaching Excellence, González-McLean and Brandon Huggon, assistant director of Student Services, created an interactive repository of diversity- and inclusion-related resources for CSON faculty, staff, and external consultants to help expand conversations held in

color (see related news story, page four). “The surveys and other activities are strategies to take stock of where we are and where we need to go next in our long move forward.” ▪

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A new Associate Dean for Research heart disease researcher christopher lee joins connell by zachary jason Photograph: Lee Pellegrini

Cardiovascular nurse scientist Christopher Lee, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, likes to call his data-driven research approach “biobehavioral profiling.”

Combining symptom science with exploring both the patient’s self-care behavior and the relationship between the patient and informal caregiver, he looks “into and beyond” patients suffering from heart disease.

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L

ee, who will join the Connell School

examines how relationships between

Barbara Riegel, a leading researcher in

in January 2018 as associate dean

patients and their informal caregivers—

adult heart failure (with whom Lee has

for research and director of the Office of

such as spouses and adult children—

since co-authored 34 articles); Nancy

Nursing Research (ONR), comes to Boston

can affect symptoms. (The most success-

Tkacs, a neuroendocrine physiologist; and heart-failure physician Kenneth Margulies.

College after seven years at Oregon Health

ful situation, Lee has found, is when

& Science University (OHSU), where he

both patient and caregiver willfully

was most recently the Carol A. Lindeman

manage the illness, and the spouse treats

Ph.D. students, which he may continue to

caregiving less as a strain and more as a

do at the Connell School. He’s also inter-

Distinguished Professor. At OHSU, a leader in women’s health, he published

“labor of love.”) Lee’s work has earned him

At OHSU, Lee taught biostatistics to

ested in teaching and “finding ways to

10 papers examining gender differences

the 2016 Protégé Award from the Friends

make undergraduates more inspired and

in heart disease. In general, larger hearts

of the National Institute of Nursing

have more opportunities to engage in

are worse for men, smaller hearts worse

Research, the 2014 Heart Failure Society

research. It’s important to be exposed to

of America (HFSA) Nursing Leadership

research early.”

for women.

With grants from the National

Award, and the 2013 American Heart

Lee is a “born mentor,” says Sean

Institutes of Health and the National

Association (AHA) Marie Cowan

Clarke, associate dean for Undergraduate

Institute of Nursing Research, Lee led a

Promising Young Investigator Award. In

Programs, who met Lee in an NIH study

team of colleagues at OHSU and across

addition to being a fellow of the American

session when Clarke was an undergradu-

the country in several studies on how the

Academy of Nursing, Lee is a fellow of

ate at Penn. “He’s great at figuring out

installment of a left ventricular assist

HFSA and AHA.

what people need to transform their ideas

device (LVAD)—a pump used for patients

The Scituate, Massachusetts, native says

into research and publications. And he’s

with end-stage heart failure—affects both

his arrival at the Connell School “feels like

had a great run at nailing down funding,

physical and psychological symptoms. In

a homecoming. I still have family here,

which will help get science going on the

one study, Lee’s team examined 64

and I never lost the accent.” After high

ground for students at all levels.”

bridge-surgery patients (who would

school, he attended the University of New

eventually receive heart transplants) and

Hampshire, “mostly because of their

mentor to faculty researchers, Lee hopes

In his roles as ONR director and a

22 destination-surgery patients (ineligible

cycling club,” he jokes. But as a student

to encourage more interdisciplinary

for transplants) before and then one,

EMT, he became fascinated to find out

inquiry across the Connell School, in

three, and six months after LVAD implan-

what happened after he handed off

particular cardiovascular research. Heart

tation. As Lee reported in the June 2017

patients “to really skilled, really confident

disease is still the leading cause of death

Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, by far

nurses.” After earning a bachelor’s degree

in the United States, claiming some

the greatest benefits for both bridge and

in nursing, he spent seven years as a

610,000 lives a year, more than all cancers

destination patients appear within the

bedside nurse in Massachusetts health

combined. But more and more, Lee notes,

first 30 days of installment, earlier than

care facilities, including Beth Israel

today’s patients “have cardiovascular

previously thought.

Deaconess Medical Center and the Lahey

disease and diabetes and high blood

Hospital & Medical Center.

pressure and rheumatoid arthritis.

Lee also investigates patients’ self-management of heart disease. “What are

Then, while earning his nurse practi-

Treatment is increasingly complicated.”

patients doing for themselves during the

tioner degree and Ph.D. at the University

Nurses need “more information and skills

99.99 percent of the time they’re not in a

of Pennsylvania, he “caught the research

to master than ever.”

physician or NP’s office?” And he

bug,” he recalls, studying under Professor

▪

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New faculty by zachary jason Photographs: Lee Pellegrini

Meet the three newest members of the Connell School of Nursing faculty: two New Yorkers and a Texan, with a range of nursing experience in India, Switzerland, and North Carolina, and expertise in rare endocrine diseases, eating disorders, mindfulness, and infant feeding.

Andrew Dwyer

assistant professor

After growing up in a small apple-farming community in upstate New York, Andrew Dwyer, Ph.D., FNP-BC, graduated from Cornell University and worked with special needs children before enrolling in Massachusetts General Hospital’s graduate school of nursing in 1997. A hospice nurse from 1999 to 2004, Dwyer then “went from the end of life to the pre-origins of life,” becoming a nurse practitioner and clinical research coordinator at MGH’s reproductive endocrinology unit.

There, he was part of a translational research team that treated adult patients with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH), a rare hormonedeficiency condition with symptoms that can include delayed or absent puberty and infertility. He administered an investigational new drug that replaced the missing gonadotropin-releasing hormone and made it possible for patients to conceive children. A decade later, an MGH colleague who had become chief of pediatric endocrinology at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, invited Dwyer to join her practice. While earning his Ph.D. at the university, Dwyer worked with 120 clinicians from 38 countries to develop a clinic that helped young adults with CHH through the difficult transition from pediatric to adult care. After six years in Europe, he, his wife (a nurse practitioner), and their 10- and 11-year-old daughters decided it was time to return to the US. At the Connell School, Dwyer plans to continue his research in the transition from pediatric to adult care nursing, and in genetic literacy.

He hopes to develop ways to “help patients make informed decisions that are in line with their values, not just their providers’ recommendations.”

He will also be teaching courses in advanced practice as well as family and community nursing.

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voice | winter 2018

Britt Pados

assistant professor

In 2010, Britt Pados gave birth to 34-week-old fraternal twins. They had to stay in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where Pados ’03, Ph.D., RN, NNP-BC, began her nursing career. Experiencing the “heart-wrenching” parents’ side of the NICU, says Pados, “has absolutely colored my research and the way I care for families. Now I can really relate.”

The native Texan’s interest in research developed as a Boston College undergraduate research fellow for Connell School Associate Professor Ellen Mahoney. First as an NICU nurse at Beth Israel (2003–04) and then, after earning an M.S. at the University of Pennsylvania, as an NICU nurse practitioner at Columbia University Medical Center (2005–07), “I was always asking myself, What evidence do we have to support what we’re doing?” For her doctoral dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pados investigated a common but underexplored side effect common to babies born with cardiac defects: a reluctance to eat. After examining and classifying 290 bottle nipples, she found those with the slowest milk-f low rates best for medically fragile infants’ eating.

Her research continues at the Connell School, as she and Assistant Professor Jinhee Park work on improvements to the Neonatal Eating Assessment Tool (NeoEAT), a survey in which parents provide detailed information on their infants’ feeding habits.

This fall, Pados co-taught an undergraduate clinical lab, which will be followed by Advanced Clinical Decision Making in Pediatric Primary Care in the spring. Meanwhile, her healthy twins have begun the first grade.

Julie Dunne

clinical instructor

After graduating from high school, Rochester, New York, native Julie Dunne, M.S. ’15, Ph.D. ’18, RN, PMHNP-BC, spent a summer in Chillakallu, India, where she volunteered at a village hospital and battered women’s shelter. It left her “amazed at what the nurses could do with so few resources,” she recalls. She returned to the US with a deep interest in blending Western medicine with Eastern practices such as homeopathic remedies, yoga, and mindfulness.

After graduating from Nazareth College School of Nursing in 2012, Dunne worked at Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, a leading treatment facility for patients with eating disorders, before becoming a nurse practitioner at Cambridge Eating Disorder Center. Dunne, who for years has meditated to start each morning, often teaches her patients mindfulness practices— for example, a minute of guided meditation before discussing medication.

For her dissertation at the Connell School, she’s exploring the effects mindfulness can have on individuals with anorexia nervosa. She’s found that as patients recover from the disorder, general mindfulness—such as deep breathing or body scanning—may be more effective than mindful eating practices (such as counting the chews of each bite).

Both semesters of this year, Dunne will continue to co-teach, with Associate Professor Judith Shindul-Rothschild, two courses in psychiatric mental health nursing that she taught as a teaching fellow in 2016–17. boston college william f. connell school of nursing

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faculty publications Nadia N. Abuelezam Abuelezam, N. N., & Fontenot, H. B. (2017).

Depression among Arab American and Arab immigrant women in the United States.

Nursing for Women’s Health, 21(5), 395–399.

DOI.org/10.1016/j.nwh.2017.08.003

Einstein, D. J., DeSanto-Madeya, S. A., Gregas, M., Lynch, J., McDermott, D. F., & Buss, M. K. (2017). Improving end-of-life care: Palliative care embedded in an oncology clinic specializing in targeted and immune-based therapies. Journal of Oncology Practice, 13(9), e729–e737. DOI. org/10.1200/JOP.2016.020396

Edmonds, J. K., O’Hara, M., Clarke, S. P., & Shah, N. T. (2017). Variation in Cesarean birth rates by labor and delivery nurses. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing: JOGNN, 46(4), 486–493. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2017.03.009

Sean Clarke

Andrew Dwyer

Edmonds, J. K., O’Hara, M., Clarke, S. P., & Shah, N. T. (2017). Variation in Cesarean birth rates by labor and delivery nurses. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing: JOGNN, 46(4), 486–493. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2017.03.009

Chavez, K. S., Dwyer, A. A., & Ramelet, A.-S. (2017).

International practice settings, interventions and outcomes of nurse practitioners in geriatric care: A scoping review. International Journal of Nursing Studies. Advance online publication. DOI. org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2017.09.010

Shindul-Rothschild, J., Flanagan, J. M., Stamp, K. D., & Read, C. E. (2017). Beyond the pain scale: Provider communication and staffing predictive of patients’ satisfaction with pain control. Pain Management Nursing. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1016/j.pmn.2017.05.003

Linzer, P. B., & Clarke, S. P. (2017). An integrative review of the hands-free technique in the OR. AORN Journal, 106(3), 211–218.e6. DOI. org/10.1016/j.aorn.2017.07.004 Perloff, J., Clarke, S., DesRoches, C. M., O’ReillyJacob, M., & Buerhaus, P. (2017). Association of state-level restrictions in nurse practitioner scope of practice with the quality of primary care provided to Medicare beneficiaries. Medical Care Research and Review. Advance online publication. DOI. org/10.1177/1077558717732402 Clarke, S. P. (2017). Research for academic credit in the healthcare workplace. Nursing Management, 48(6), 18–20. DOI.org/10.1097/01.

NUMA.0000516489.58802.d4 Déry, J., Clarke, S. P., D’Amour, D., & Blais, R. (2017). Scope of nursing practice in a tertiary pediatric setting: Associations with nurse and job characteristics and job satisfaction. Journal of Nursing Scholarship. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1111/jnu.12352 Lavoie, P., & Clarke, S. P. (2017). Simulation in nursing education. Nursing, 47(7), 18–20. DOI. org/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000520520.99696.9a Clarke, S. P. (2017). What you need to know about the NCLEX-RN®. Nursing Management, 48(10), 21–23. DOI.org/10.1097/01.

NUMA.0000524821.72029.0a DesRoches, C. M., Clarke, S., Perloff, J., O’ReillyJacob, M., & Buerhaus, P. (2017). The quality of primary care provided by nurse practitioners to vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries. Nursing Outlook.

Advance online publication. DOI.org/10.1016/j. outlook.2017.06.007

Susan DeSanto-Madeya DeSanto-Madeya, S. A., & Safizadeh, P. (2017).

Family satisfaction with end-of-life care in the intensive care unit: A systematic review of the literature. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 36(5), 278–283. DOI.org/10.1097 DCC.0000000000000262

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voice | winter 2018

Mabire, C., Dwyer, A., Garnier, A., & Pellet, J. (2017). Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of nursing discharge planning interventions for older inpatients discharged home. Journal of Advanced Nursing. Advance online publication. DOI. org/10.1111/jan.13475 Dzemaili, S., Tiemensma, J., Quinton, R., Pitteloud, N., Morin, D., & Dwyer, A. A. (2017). Beyond hormone replacement: Quality of life in women with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism.

Endocrine Connections, 6(6), 404–412. DOI. org/10.1530/EC-17-0095 Serena, A., Dwyer, A., Peters, S., & Eicher, M. (2017). Feasibility of advanced practice nursing in lung cancer consultations during early treatment: A phase II study. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 29, 106–114. DOI.org/10.1016/j. ejon.2017.05.007 Xu, C., Lang-Muritano, M., Phan-Hug, F., Dwyer, A. A., Sykiotis, G. P., Cassatella, D., Acierno, Jr. J., Mohammadi, M., Pitteloud, N. (2017). Genetic testing facilitates prepubertal diagnosis of congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism.

Clinical Genetics, 92(2), 213–216. DOI.org/10.1111/ cge.12996 Xu, C., Messina, A., Somm, E., Miraoui, H., Kinnunen, T., Acierno, J., Niederländer, N. J., Bouilly, J., Dwyer A. A., Sidis, Y., Cassatella, D., Sykiotis, G. P., Quinton, R., De Geyter, C., Dirlewanger, M., Schwitzgebel, V., Cole, T. R., Toogood, A. A., Kirk, J. M., Plummer, L., Albrecht, U., Crowley Jr., W. F., Mohammadi, M., TenaSemper, M., Prevot, V., & Pitteloud, N. (2017). KLB, Encoding β-Klotho, is mutated in patients with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism.

EMBO Molecular Medicine, 9(10), 1379–1397. DOI. org/10.15252/emmm.201607376

Joyce Edmonds Edmonds, J. K., & Zabbo, G. (2017). Women’s descriptions of labor onset and progression before hospital admission. Nursing for Women’s Health, 21(4), 250–258. DOI.org/10.1016/j. nwh.2017.06.003.

Jane Flanagan

Read, C. E., Shindul-Rothschild, J., Flanagan, J. M., & Stamp, K. D. (2017). Factors associated with removal of urinary catheters after surgery. Journal of Nursing Care Quality. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000287 Burke, D., Flanagan, J. M., Ditomassi, M., & Hickey, P. A. (2017). Characteristics of nurse directors that contribute to registered nurse satisfaction. Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(4), 219–225. DOI. org/10.1097/NNA.0000000000000468 Post, K. E., Moy, B., Furlani, C., Strand, E., Flanagan, J., & Peppercorn, J. M. (2017).

Survivorship model of care: Development and implementation of a nurse practitioner-led intervention for patients with breast cancer.

Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, 21(4), e99– e105. DOI.org/10.1188/17.CJON.E99-E105 Jeffries, M., Flanagan, J. M., Davies, D., & Knoll, S. (2017). Evidence to support the use of occlusive dry sterile dressings for chest tubes. MedSurg Nursing, 26(3), 171–174.

Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C. Y., Stamp, K. D., & Flanagan, J. M. (2017). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 43(2), 138–144. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003 Flanagan, J. M. (2017). Titles and abstracts: Brevity is important. International Journal of Nursing Knowledge, 28(2), 63. DOI.org/10.1111/20473095.12174

Holly Fontenot Fantasia, H. C., Harris, A. L., & Fontenot, H. B. (2017). Incorporating features of the Bedsider website into contraceptive counseling. Women’s Healthcare, 5(2), 37–45.

Wheldon, C. W., Sutton, S. K., Fontenot, H. B., Quinn, G. P., Giuliano, A. R., & Vadaparampil, S. T. (2017). Physician communication practices as a barrier to risk-based HPV vaccine uptake among men who have sex with men. Journal of Cancer Education. DOI.org/10.1007/s13187-017-1223-6 Abuelezam, N. N., & Fontenot, H. B. (2017).

Depression among Arab American and Arab immigrant women in the United States. Nursing for Women’s Health, 21(5), 395–399. DOI. org/10.1016/j.nwh.2017.08.003

Stupiansky, N. W., Liau, A., Rosenberger, J., Rosenthal, S. L., Tu, W., Xiao, S., Fontenot, H., & Zimet, G. D. (2017). Young men’s disclosure of same sex behaviors to health care providers and the impact on health: Results from a US national sample of young MSM. AIDS Patient Care and STDs, 31(8), 342–347. DOI.org/10.1089/ apc.2017.0011

Allyssa Harris Garcia, M., & Harris, A. L. (2017). PrEP awareness and decision-making for Latino MSM in San Antonio, Texas. PLOS One, 19(9). DOI.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0184014 Fantasia, H. C., Harris, A. L., & Fontenot, H. B. (2017). Incorporating features of the Bedsider website into contraceptive counseling. Women’s Healthcare, 5(2), 37–45.

Carina Katigbak Van Devanter, N., Katigbak, C., Naegle, M., Zhou, S., Sherman, S., & Weitzman, M. (2017). Nursing education to reduce use of tobacco and alternative tobacco products: Change is imperative. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 23(6), 414–421. DOI.org/10.1177/1078390317711252

Britt Pados Pados, B. F., Thoyre, S. M., Knafl, G. J., & Nix, W. B. (2017). Heart rate variability as a feeding intervention outcome measure in the preterm infant. Advances in Neonatal Care,17(5), E10–E20.

DOI.org/10.1097/ANC.0000000000000430 Thoyre, S. M., Pados, B. F., Park, J., Estrem, H., McComish, C., & Hodges, E. A. (2017). The Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool (PediEAT): Factor structure and psychometric properties.

Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

Advance online publication. DOI.org/10.1097/ MPG.0000000000001765

Jinhee Park Winkler, M., Park, J., Pan, W., Brandon, D., Scher, M. M., & Holditch-Davis, D. (2017). Does preterm period sleep development predict early childhood growth trajectories? Journal of Perinatology, 37(9), 1047–1052. DOI.org/10.1038/jp.2017.91 Thoyre, S. M., Pados, B. F., Park, J., Estrem, H., McComish, C., & Hodges, E. A. (2017). The Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool (PediEAT): Factor structure and psychometric properties.

Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

Advance online publication. DOI.org/10.1097/ MPG.0000000000001765 Brandon, D., Silva, S., Park, J., Malcom, W., Kamhaway, H., & Holditch-Davis, D. (2017). Timing for the introduction of cycled light for extremely preterm infants: A randomized controlled trial.

Research in Nursing and Health, 40(4), 294–310.

DOI.org/10.1002/nur.21797

Catherine Read Read, C. Y., & Ward, L. D. (2018). Misconceptions about genomics among nursing faculty and students. Nurse Educator, 43(4). DOI.org/10.1097/ NNE.0000000000000444 Shindul-Rothschild, J., Flanagan, J. M., Stamp, K. D., & Read, C. E. (2017). Beyond the pain scale: Provider communication and staffing predictive of patients’ satisfaction with pain control. Pain Management Nursing. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1016/j.pmn.2017.05.003 Read, C. E., Shindul-Rothschild, J., Flanagan, J. M., & Stamp, K. D. (2017). Factors associated with removal of urinary catheters after surgery. Journal of Nursing Care Quality. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000287 Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C. Y., Stamp, K. D., & Flanagan, J. M. (2017). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 43(2), 138–144. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003

Judith Shindul-Rothschild Shindul-Rothschild, J., Flanagan, J. M., Stamp, K. D., & Read, C. E. (2017). Beyond the pain scale: Provider communication and staffing predictive of patients’ satisfaction with pain control. Pain Management Nursing. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1016/j.pmn.2017.05.003 Read, C. E., Shindul-Rothschild, J., Flanagan, J. M., & Stamp, K. D. (2017). Factors associated with removal of urinary catheters after surgery. Journal of Nursing Care Quality. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000287 Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C. Y., Stamp, K. D., & Flanagan, J. M. (2017). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 43(2), 138–144. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003 Rothschild, A. J., & Shindul-Rothschild, J. (2017).

Benzodiazepines do not cause suicide or suicide attempts. The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 19(5), 17lr02171. DOI.org/10.4088/ PCC.17lr02171

Melissa Sutherland Angelini, K., Sutherland, M. A., & Fantasia, H. C. (2017). College health center utilization among a sample of senior college women. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 13(10), e477–e480. DOI. org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2017.07.014

Sinha, A., McRoy, R. G., Berkman, B., & Sutherland, M. (2017). Drivers of change: Examining the effects of gender equality on child nutrition. Children and Youth Services Review, 76, 203–212. DOI. org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.03.007 Angelini, K., Sutherland, M. A., & Fantasia, H. C. (2017). Reported alcohol and tobacco use and screening among college women. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing, 46(3), e75–e82. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2016.12.004 Sutherland, M. A., Fantasia, H. C., & Hutchinson, M. K. (2016). Screening for intimate partner and sexual violence in college women: Missed opportunities. Women’s Health Issues, 26(2), 217– 224. DOI.org/10.1016/j.whi.2015.07.008 Fontenot, H. F., Fantasia, H. C., Sutherland, M. A., & Lee-St. John, T. (2016). HPV and HPV vaccine information among a national sample of college and university websites. Journal of the Academy of Nurse Practitioners, 28, 223–218. DOI. org/10.1002/2327-6924.12312

Patricia Tabloski Evans, J., & Tabloski, P. A. Redefining Retirement for Nurses: Finding meaning in retirement. Sigma Theta Tau International, 2018.

Schmitt, E. M., Gallagher, J., Albuquerque, A., Tabloski, P., Lee, H. J., Gleason, L., Weiner, L. S., Marcantonio, E. R., Jones, R. N., Inouye, S. K., Schulman-Green, D. (2017). Perspectives on the delirium experience and its burden: Common themes among older patients, their family caregivers, and nurses. The Gerontologist, gnx 153.

DOI.org/10.1093/geront/gnx153

Judith Vessey Vessey, J. A., McCabe, M., & Lulloff, A. J. (2017).

One size doesn’t fit all. Nursing Management, 48(2), 26–34. DOI.org/10.1097/01.

NUMA.0000511917.44775.95 Strout, T. D., DiFazio, R. L., & Vessey, J. A. (2017).

Technology-enhanced focus groups as a component of instrument development. Nurse Researcher, 25(1), 16–23. DOI.org/10.7748/nr.2017.e1458

Yaguang Zheng Burke, L. E., Zheng, Y., Ma, Q., Mancino, J., Loar, I., Music, E., Styn, M., Ewing, L., French, B., Sieworek, D., Smailagic, A., & Sereika, S. M. (2017).

The SMARTER pilot study: Testing feasibility of real-time feedback for dietary self-monitoring.

Preventive Medicine Reports, 6, 278–285. DOI. org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2017.03.017

Katz, J., & Sutherland, M. A. (2017). College women’s experiences of male partner contraceptive interference: Associations with intimate partner violence and contraceptive outcomes. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Advance online publication.

DOI.org/10.1177/0886260517715600

boston college william f. connell school of nursing

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Join us Pinnacle Lecture Series Monday, April 30, 2018 5:00 p.m.

Yawkey Center, Murray Room

Rear Admiral Susan Orsega MSN, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN Assistant Surgeon General and Chief Nurse Officer United States Public Health Service

Learn more and register at www.bc.edu/pinnacle Photograph: Courtesy US Public Health Service