Celebrating nurses with local roots on National Nurses Day – these three from Sacred Heart Schools
Today is National Nurses Day, the beginning of National Nurses Week, which extends to May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale aka “The Lady with the Lamp,” who became famous for taking care of wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, often at night.
Locally Sacred Heart Schools is posting photos of graduates who are now nurses. The school’s bell tower is also shining blue in the night. Here are three grads. We celebrate their courage and hard work!
Writes Annie Coyne (#shsfrontline Chicago, IL, SJS `02, SHP `06) pictured above: “I remember telling my classmates in Mrs. Hvidt’s third grade class that I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. I work on a general medicine floor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago. If you’re looking for a way to help, please donate blood if you can. Major thanks to Mrs. DeZutti and Mrs. James for cultivating my hand washing skills in the mid-’90s, and to Dupi for being the coolest nurse.”
Writes Brittany Brugos (#shsfrontline in New York City, SHP `06) pictured right: “As critical care practitioners, we see some form of medical crisis almost every shift. But when COVID-19 cases started flooding NYC hospitals, we were pulled from all over our hospital system, to a newly designated COVID ICU (Intensive Care Unit). We knew immediately this crisis was different. It involved working with practitioners we had never met, whose names we didn’t know, and whose faces were covered by N95 masks and face shields. We showed up every shift trying to treat a disease we didn’t yet fully understand. All of us – nurses, doctors, physicians assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, maintenance staff, supply chain staff – all being asked to do two to three times our normal workload on one of what would eventually become five designated COVID ICUs.”
Writes Michael McKenna (#shsFrontline, SJS `08, SHP `12): “My sister Laura (McKenna) Mullins (SJS `05, SHP `09, pictured right) is working hard to keep her patients safe and healthy at Boston Children’s Hospital.”
Know someone who’s doing essential work in health care? Please add their name and what they do in comments!
