Beyond the Bedside

Listen to the audio version of this article

It’s often said that nursing is a kind of vocation. Such is certainly the case for Katherine Gregory, PhD’05, RN, FAAN, who, nearly four years ago, returned to the Connell School of Nursing to step into the office of dean. In a 30-year career spent at the crossroads of nursing, innovation, and education, she has blazed a trail characterized by deep care for her patients as well as the nurses she’s trained. As dean of the Connell School, she’s woven the same qualities into the student experience and programs at her alma mater.

“I was happy at my previous role at another mission-driven organization, making a difference in the nursing care that patients and families received,” says Dean Gregory. “But I wasn’t able to influence nursing education the way I am here. I wanted to be a part of that educational mission.

“Beyond that, of course, [were] the people. BC has a vibrant community of scholars—certainly in nursing and health—that extends across the entire University. It says a lot that we have faculty who have been with us for over 20 years. Our faculty, staff, and students make this a wonderful place to work and be a part of the academic community.”

When did you know you wanted to be a nurse?

When I was three years old I told my mother I was going to be a nurse. I grew up in a family of nurses—my grandmother, my aunts—and always knew I wanted to do something in healthcare. I love science, but I also love people, and so nursing is a great way to bring those together.

But my real formative experience started in the seventh grade, when I became a candy striper (a hospital volunteer) during the summers at a hospital in Syracuse, New York, where I grew up. I helped the nurses take care of patients, and seeing them in their roles showed me nursing up close.

When it came time to choose a college major, I knew nursing was for me. It really is a calling that many of us don’t necessarily choose; it chooses us. That was true for me, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

What specific experiences from those summers drew you to nursing?

So many, but there’s one I will carry with me forever. After the Armenian earthquake [in 1988], our hospital took care of some of the victims. There were two patients in particular, both children, whom I developed a really long-standing relationship with. The boy’s name was Ara, and the girl’s name was Rose. I helped take care of them throughout their hospitalization, and have kept in touch with them for many years after.

What makes a good nurse?

I think there are three main elements. The first is exceptional observational, assessment, and communication skills. An outstanding nurse is able to take in a lot of information, interpret it, and communicate it efficiently.

The second is a kind of objective prioritization. Nurses have to reprioritize work all day long, so they have to be able to do that in real time as patients’ conditions change and so on.

And the last is empathy—being able to see a circumstance from another’s perspective. I think we do an incredible job here at the Connell School in the area of student formation, helping our nurses deepen that sense of empathy and care for the whole person of their patients.

Those traits—empathy, prioritization, efficient analysis—seem difficult to teach. How does the Connell School approach that?

All of them stem from getting to know the patient and the family. Helping our nurses develop a holistic perspective of the patient, the family, or even the community that they’re caring for is instrumental in that regard.

What’s unique about Connell School students?

They’re incredibly academically talented, but they also fiercely want to be nurses, to use this education to impact human health and public health in a way that I think is really special.

Our students are so well integrated across campus. They take the full core curriculum, which doesn’t happen in every nursing program. It gives them exposure to philosophy and theology, the liberal arts, and the social sciences, ensuring they receive a comprehensive Jesuit education while also contributing to their excellence as nurses. I always say our nursing education is scientifically rigorous, but uniquely embedded in the liberal arts. I think that’s why so many people want a Boston College nursing education.

* U.S. News & World Report Best Nursing Schools

What are some of the most pressing issues facing the field of nursing, as well as the Connell School?

In nursing education, it’s absolutely faculty. We have an access problem—meaning there are far more people who want to study nursing than we are able to provide access to, and that’s because we simply don’t have enough faculty to grow our programs.

And for good reason: most people seek nursing because they want to take care of patients, and it’s challenging to convince them to come back and teach. They don’t think about nursing as a path to teaching or research, which then creates this dearth of faculty who will help grow the population of nurses.

Additionally, in Boston we’re competing for faculty not just with other renowned universities, but also world-class hospitals, academic medical centers and labs, and other institutions.

There’s been much talk of the crisis in the nursing workforce. How does the Connell School equip students to cope with the stress and burnout that often accompany the work?

The COVID-19 pandemic showed us what was already starting to happen in hospitals and healthcare writ large: that is, the work environment and demands of patient care are challenging, to put it mildly. Too often our nurses are burnt out, at the end of their rope. They need an opportunity to focus on self-care. We know [some ways] that nurses can find renewal [are] through Jesuit formation, through mentorship, and through wellness initiatives that we hope to bolster here at BC.

It would be one thing if we were just training nurses to enter practice, but our mission is to educate nurses with the knowledge and critical thinking they will need over the entire trajectory of their practice. BC nurses are unique in that they receive an education that includes how to be reflective, to be attentive, and to be caring for themselves so they can care for others.

What are some of your proudest moments in your time in this role?

Without a doubt, seeing our students walk across the stage at Commencement and receive their degrees. It comes with such pride, because not only do we know how hard the students have worked, we also know that behind every student is a whole network of support from our faculty and staff in the Connell School—to say nothing of our students’ families, for many of whom this is the first college degree in their family. So we have such a deep sense of pride and gratitude on those Commencement days.

What upcoming programs or initiatives are you excited about?

We’re incredibly excited and have great enthusiasm for our newest major, global public health and the common good. That really has brought a new energy to our school: we have new faculty who’ve come to us with very interdisciplinary backgrounds, which has advanced public health and nursing education at the undergraduate level. That program is housed here at the Connell School and partners with the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, collaborating very closely with our colleagues in Schiller to administer that major.

At the graduate level, we’ve long been distinguished for our advanced practice nursing education, our nurse practitioner programs, and our certified registered nurse anesthetist program (the Connell School remains the number one ranked graduate nursing program in Massachusetts). For the past two years, we’ve been working hard to develop a nurse midwifery program.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen us grow into a school that’s public health–, primary care–, and service-oriented. That’s not exactly a new development, but it’s increasingly important that we place a renewed emphasis on the public health imperatives that nursing serves. Whether it’s acute care, primary care, or community-based care, we need to focus on our mission of nursing for public health and the greater good.

How can donors make a difference at the Connell School?

Faculty retention is an area where donor support can make a profound impact. Fellowship funds, research funds, and endowed professorships are the coin of the realm in higher education and academia; they provide the resources expert faculty are seeking to stay in their roles and continue to flourish in the classroom. With the competition for high-caliber faculty so fierce, these opportunities make it possible to recruit and retain top-tier faculty, who then influence the education, academic programs, and student experience across our schools.

Likewise, the Dean’s Innovation Fund helps me retain faculty by investing in their research and scholarly work while also deepening the student experience. With these flexible resources, I can support a number of initiatives within the Connell School—from student immersion experiences to global health and community partnerships—which have proven invaluable for our students and faculty.

How can BC address the bottleneck in nursing education?

It’s about expanding resources and opportunities to encourage excellent nurses who are in practice to come back to graduate school, get advanced degrees, and eventually enter the ranks of faculty. Anything we can do to defray the cost of that—through research support, scholarships, faculty fellowships—will make an enormous difference in overcoming this faculty shortage.

Moreover, we have to help nurses see the impact they can make by bringing their clinical experience and expertise into the classroom, where they can share that with future nurses. As an expert clinician, your impact is at the patient or family level—maybe 10 to 15 patients in a week. But when you come into the classroom, you’ll make an exponential impact in the lives of hundreds of students over the course of a semester, training generations of nurses who will go on to provide outstanding care for patients and families.

What role has philanthropy played in the Connell School’s continued ascent?

I see our donors, friends, and family as essential partners in our academic mission. Without the support of our whole community, we can’t provide our renowned mentorship and advising programs, offer our nursing students high-fidelity simulation, send them on global service learning opportunities, and so much more.