Massachusetts Report on Nursing - December 2020

November 2020 <strong>Massachusetts</strong> <strong>Report</strong> on Nursing • 15
conditions and support interprofessional practice learning at a student-faculty practice
providing primary care with underserved populations. This model has been widely
disseminated and received the prestigious Public Health Excellence in Interprofessional
Collaboration Award by the US Public Health Service and Interprofessional Education
Collaborative. She has served as a catalyst for faculty regionally and nationally to
adopt new academic interprofessional models; and to infuse new curriculum content
and experiences for advanced practice nurses caring for vulnerable populations and
promote health equity.
Ellen M. Robinson, PhD, RN, HEC-C
Nursing’s disciplinary perspective shines light on patient
response when the patient’s voice is lost in a highly
medicalized culture. Collective voices of ethics and policy
experts to urge responsible stewardship of resources can
impact end of life care and redirect utilization of health care
dollars towards more beneficial care
Ellen M. Robinson, PhD, RN, HEC-C is a graduate of
the William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College,
receiving her Masters’ degree in Cardiovascular Nursing as
a Clinical Nurse Specialist in 1983, and her PhD degree in
nursing with a focus on nursing ethics in 1997. During her doctoral program, Ellen was
the recipient of a National Research Service Award (National Institute of Nursing) for
her dissertation research and awarded a pre-doctoral fellowship in the Department of
Veterans Affairs. In 1998, Dr. Robinson completed the Harvard Medical School Center
for Bioethics medical ethics fellowship after which she transitioned into the role of
Nurse Ethicist at the <strong>Massachusetts</strong> General Hospital (MGH). In her role as nurse
ethicist, Ellen provides ethics consultation to health professionals, patients and families.
She has served on the MGH Optimum Care Committee since 1993 and as co-chair of the
committee since 2007. In Dr. Robinson’s role as committee co-chair, she was a leader
with physician colleagues in the development and implementation of the hospital’s
‘Do No Harm’ policy, which aims to protect patients approaching end of life from the
harms of CPR. Dr. Robinson serves on the MGH Hospital for Children Pediatric Ethics
Committee and the Harvard Medical School Ethics Leadership Council; she also holds
a faculty appointment in the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. Ellen has
successfully co-directed a research program on ethics consultation that has contributed
empirically to life sustaining treatment policy and clinical ethics literature in processes,
outcomes and themes of ethics consultations. Dr. Robinson is currently chair of the
Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs committee of the American Society of Bioethics
and Humanities. The highlight of Ellen’s professional career has been continued active
engagement and mentorship of clinical nurses and health professionals in direct care
roles involved in ethically complex situations and interested in career development.
and equity-centered invention practices has been featured in national media outlets
such as Forbes, Scientific American, on NPR, and in the journal Science.
Lisa Wolf, PhD, RN, CEN, FAEN, FAAN
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that the problem
is bigger than you think it is. I learned this from Dottie Jones,
who was my dissertation chair and mentor at BC. I walked in
with a nice tight study on chest pain, and walked out with a
theory of decision-making that has shaped my practice and
research ever since.
Dr. Lisa Adams Wolf received her BA in Anthropology
from Amherst College, a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from
Emerson College, a diploma in Nursing from St Elizabeth’s
Hospital School of Nursing, a Masters’ degree in Nursing from
Molloy College, and a PhD from Boston College’s Connell
School of Nursing. Dr. Wolf is the Director of Emergency
Nursing Research at the Emergency Nurses Association, and an adjunct professor at
both the University of <strong>Massachusetts</strong> and Elms College. Dr. Wolf’s work focuses on
understanding the socio-clinical structure of the emergency care setting as an influencing
factor in nursing practice and patient safety. Her dissertation work provides a theoretical
model of clinical decision-making in emergency care environments that demonstrates the
intersection of individual factors and socio-environmental factors at the point of clinical
decision-making. Her work since then has continued to expand and explicate the research,
practice, and educational implications of that intersection. Over the last decade, she
has identified individual and environmental driving factors in workplace bullying, moral
distress, and fatigue that affect both nursing and patient outcomes. Her most recent
work identifies the chronic, cumulative, unacknowledged secondary trauma prevalent in
emergency nursing as a driver of lateral and organizational violence, suicidality in nurses,
and errors in clinical decision-making. Her work consistently underpins both educational
and policy work by the Emergency Nurses Association, specifically in critical areas of
residency education, workplace violence, triage practices, identification and management
of high-risk patients, and emergency nursing staffing guidelines. She has developed
theoretical frameworks that describe the elements and effect of the unique environment
of the emergency care setting on nursing and patient outcomes, with application of those
frameworks to real-world problems, reframed the role of an organizational research
institute into a unique mechanism to effectively bridge the theory-practice gap nationally
and internationally, leveraged leadership of an organizational research institute to address
cross-disciplinary problems in the care of patients with reproductive care and psychiatric
care needs, and conducted creative, wide-ranging explorations of nursing phenomena
that underpins education, practice, and policy for emergency nursing.
Nancy White Street, BSN, MSN, ScM, ScD, PPCNP-BC
Today, I chose to come to my local library for my
commentary, a place where stories are celebrated and
shared. During this most challenging time of COVID, and
in the year 2020, nurses are center stage in our world,
celebrated as heroes of the front line and leaders in our
communities. Collectively nurses have a responsibility to
raise their voices, tell their stories to educate leaders and
community influencers. Stand up, be seen and be heard!
Advocate for the health and well-being of the marginalized
populations of the world.
Dr. Nancy White Street received a Bachelor of Science
degree in Nursing from Boston College and an MS degree from the University
of Pennsylvania. She holds Masters’ and Doctoral degrees in Public Health from
the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Street is a nurse and social
epidemiologist with a thirty-year record of scholarship, program development and
implementation in global health, nursing education, and adolescent medicine. She
is the Co-Founder and former Executive Director of the International Nurse Faculty
Partnership Initiative at Regis College, leading the education of nursing faculty in Haiti
from 2011-2017. Dr. Street is currently the Co-Director of the Global Nursing Caucus, an
organization focused on building and strengthening worldwide collaborations between
nurses to advance healthcare for all, through research, practice and education. She was
the inaugural Julia and Harold Plotnick Professor of Global Nursing at the University
of <strong>Massachusetts</strong>-Dartmouth, where she expanded global partnerships locally and
nationally, including the development of a nurse-led community health worker program
in the Mississippi Delta. A pediatric nurse practitioner with over twenty-five years of
experience in adolescent health, she has worked in urban health care centers serving
the needs of inner-city children. Nancy translated her clinical observation of the
sleep deprivation epidemic among adolescents into a doctoral dissertation in social
epidemiology, and advocates for later school start times at the national and local level.
Dr. Street is a Professor at <strong>Massachusetts</strong> College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
University.
Rachel Walker, PhD, RN, OCN
Scholars and mentors have taught me that most of the
systems people refer to as ‘broken’ are functioning exactly
as designed, and the people in power know it. If we want to
create new futures to transform health, we need to transform
who has the power, including, in nursing.
Rachel Walker is a nurse inventor, Associate Professor and
PhD Program Director at UMASS Amherst College of Nursing,
where they also help to direct the IALS Center for Health and
Human Performance. They are a co-founder of the Nursing
Mutual Aid collective and the first and only nurse ever to
serve as Invention Ambassador for the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, where they’ve advised government agencies like the White House Office of
Science & Technology Policy and industries from UnitedHealth to Facebook on policy
related to invention, technology and A.I. in health care. Their work on more inclusive
VOLUNTEER
TODAY!
Emergency Preparation
and Response
Disaster Medical
Support
Vaccination Clinics
Emergency Sheltering
Community Events
Call Center Support
Free Training
and CEUs
Public health
professionals rely on
Medical Reserve Corps
volunteers to assist in
preparing for, responding
to, and recovering from
emergencies. Join your
local MRC unit to further
serve your community
during this public health
emergency!
Participating units and coverage areas:
• Brookline MRC
• Metro East MRC: Arlington, Belmont, Braintree, Cambridge,
Chelsea, Cohasset, Everett, Hanover, Hingham, Hull, Norwell,
Quincy, Revere, Scituate, Somerville, Watertown, Weymouth,
and Winthrop
• Newton MRC
• Norfolk County 8 MRC: Canton, Dedham, Milton, Needham,
Norwood, Walpole, Wellesley, and Westwood
We would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to every nurse
serving during this public health emergency.
Join us! region4ab.org/mrc