Generosity

Getting things on the road

BY | GREG SKOOG (SJU ’89)

Mary Dombovy ’77 and her late husband Michael Johnson have sponsored a named, endowed scholarship at Saint Ben’s for a number of years. “I was very fortunate to go to undergrad here,” Mary recalls. “My father became ill during the second semester of my freshman year. And I missed a fair amount of time, including labs. All of my professors at Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s were willing to let me make that up – including evenings, weekends and a little bit into the end of the year – so that I wasn’t set back half a year.

CSB alumna and current Board of Trustees member Mary Dombovy '77 “That was incredibly important to me because I already knew I wanted to apply to med school and, if I was set back, it could have affected my application negatively. So I was always very thankful for that.”

Mary did go to med school, graduating from Mayo Medical School and completing her residency in 1985. Then, in 1989, she set off for Rochester, New York, and the chance to help launch a new brain injury and stroke program. Today that program has grown into The Neuroscience Institute at Rochester Regional Health. So when Saint Ben’s started thinking about introducing a graduate program for advanced nurse practitioners, Mary was one of our first calls. “I said, ‘Why are you THINKING about it?’ ” Mary laughs. “I mean, this is a no brainer. You’ve had a nursing program since the sixties. You have a large health care system in St. Cloud that can provide you with clinical training sites. I would stop thinking about this and get it done.” In Mary’s experience as a physician, there is a crucially important and rapidly growing role for advanced practice providers like DNPs (doctors of nursing practice). “What it allows the physician to do is to see the new patients and focus on the most difficult aspects,” she says. “The nurse practitioner can do the medication management, counseling with the patient, see the patient for follow-up. … “So it allows us to care for more people, care for them well, and care for them in a cost-effective manner. Which, with the rising cost of our health care system, I think is incredibly important.” After that early conversation, Mary chose to back up her advice with a gift of $25,000 to help fund the market research study for the DNP program. And, once the decision was made to proceed with the program, Mary stepped up again with another gift to help fund renovations in our Schoenecker Nursing Education Suite to make the space better suit DNP training. Her gift supporting the Mary Dombovy and Michael Johnson DNP Simulation Space will create exam simulation rooms equipped to observe and evaluate performance.

“It’s not as sexy as a scholarship,” Mary concludes, “but I felt it was important to getting things on the road.” We agree. And we’re grateful for Mary’s advice, support and impact on the new program.

It allows us to care for more people, care for them well, and care for them in a cost-effective manner.”

You can find out more information about supporting academic innovation at the College of Saint Benedict by contacting Chad Marolf, senior principal gift officer, at cmarolf@csbsju.edu or 320-363-5402.

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Classes ending in 1 and 6

July 8-10, 2022

Classes ending in 2 and 7

June 24-26, 2022

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