Jessica Pacheco is the only occupational therapist for the Brigham’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The goal of occupational therapy is to help people achieve independence for whatever it is that “occupies” their day. Jessica Pacheco, MOT, OTR/L, CNT, an occupational therapy clinical specialist in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and NICU Follow-Up Program, is specially trained to help premature and medically complex babies participate in their “occupations.” This includes bonding and communicating with caregivers, developing self-regulation skills to cope with experiences outside the womb, and integrating and developing the sensory and motor skills needed to effectively interact, explore and play within their environment.

Part of Rehabilitation Services, the Occupational Therapy team consists of 12 inpatient occupational therapists (OTs) and six outpatient OTs who support clinics at the main campus, Chestnut Hill and Foxborough.

Pacheco, who joined the Brigham in October 2019, is the only OT for the NICU and Follow-Up Program, where she collaborates with a multidisciplinary team to promote optimal sensory and motor development in premature and medically complex babies in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

“Jessica came to us highly skilled and with excellent experience,” said Nancy Kelly, clinical supervisor for Occupational Therapy. “We’re just really thrilled that she’s been able to take on this role and perform at such a high level of skill. Because of her expertise, she was able to provide excellent care from day one.”

Pacheco was hired a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic started. While some of the hospital’s clinical services were initially scaled back at the beginning of the pandemic to limit the spread of infection, care in the NICU never stopped or slowed down. In fact, the unit saw a much higher intake of babies than ever before, and Pacheco’s work continued even when the outpatient clinic went virtual due to the pandemic.

“Being an OT in the NICU is a really unique and specialized role within the profession of OT. I feel very fortunate and grateful that my career has led me in this direction,” Pacheco said. “As an expectant mother, caregiver or parent preparing to bring life into the world, you’re not necessarily expecting or thinking your baby will begin life in an ICU setting. For families involved, it is often a traumatic, life-altering event, and we do our best as a team to help support an infant’s neurodevelopmental progression along their journey.”

Since joining the unit, Pacheco and her colleagues helped implement a standardized assessment known as the Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) for infants in the NICU so that their motor skills, movements and response to visual stimulation and orientation to sound can be tracked over time, including after they are discharged. She also works to help parents and families build their confidence by teaching them how infants communicate their needs and different techniques for handling premature infants, who can be born as early as 23 weeks old.

“What’s unique about my role is my ability to work with infants and families in the NICU, and then support them in our NICU Follow-Up Program at Brigham, which allows for continuity of developmental care and skill progression,” Pacheco said.

Pacheco’s enthusiasm, collaboration and level of specialization have already made a tremendous difference for NICU patients and families, Kelly said.

“She’s just a delight to work with and I’m just so pleased that we have somebody with her expertise working with our littlest patients,” Kelly said.

Supporting Premature Infants, Families in the NICU

Pacheco always knew she wanted to have a career in the health science field. She explored different therapies and ultimately gravitated towards the field of OT, allowing her to work with individuals to support their ability to participate in daily and meaningful occupations. During her studies, she became intrigued by the work that could be facilitated in pediatrics.

“The NICU is just one setting within the many different pediatric settings you can possibly work in as an OT,” Pacheco said. “During my time as an inpatient pediatric OT, I began developing a passion for this specific population.”

Carmina Erdei, MD, a neonatologist in the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine and director of the Growth and Development subunit of the NICU, works with Pacheco in the inpatient setting and the NICU Follow-Up outpatient program. Erdei described Pacheco as an outstanding colleague who brings so much to the NICU environment and the outpatient program with her very valuable skill set.

“When babies are born prematurely or at neurodevelopmental risk, they often need to spend weeks or even months in the NICU. While in the NICU environment, many of these infants’ experiences and the way they’re learning about the world around them are very different from what they would be exposed to if they were healthy and at home with their families,” Erdei said. “Thanks to the work of highly skilled professionals such as Jessica, our tiny patients get the opportunity to have motor and other sensory experiences that are framed more positively. This is very important to their overall progress and recovery, and prepares infants and families for a more successful transition to home.”

Historically, Erdei said, NICUs in general have focused heavily on the medical aspects of care of fragile infants. More recently, the Brigham NICU team’s knowledge and practice have evolved to ensure these vulnerable patients also receive high-quality, expert neurodevelopmental care, including occupational therapy, to set up families for long-term success.

“We are very fortunate to have Jessica as a highly experienced and valued member of our team,” Erdei added.

Pacheco said it’s been gratifying to play such an important role in the lives of her patients and their loved ones.

“The infants and families can really integrate all of the knowledge they’ve learned in the NICU environment, take it home with them to carry on with their infant’s developmental progression, and then come to the Follow-Up clinic for additional guidance,” she said. “We meet the infants and caregivers where they’re at, and then take next steps to create goals to set them up for success once they leave the walls of the NICU and step foot into the community.”

Occupational Therapy Month is held every April to honor occupational therapists’ (OTs) substantial role in improving health and quality of life. In celebration of Brigham OTs, Brigham Bulletin is highlighting one of the many exceptional OTs to cap off Occupational Therapy Month this year.

Hearts on the Bridge, a new display on the Shapiro bridge, honors the lives saved and lost at the Brigham due to COVID-19 and provides staff an opportunity to leave their own remembrances.

After spending several days on high-flow oxygen and still struggling to breathe, a patient with COVID-19 being cared for in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) turned to his nurse, Jessica Thompson, BSN, RN. He had hoped to avoid the need for intubation, but the time for an intervention had come. “I can’t do this anymore,” he told her.

With tenderness and compassion, Thompson sat with her patient and explained what would happen next. He nodded. As she began preparing the room for the intubation team, Thompson saw her patient take out his smartphone and begin watching videos of his grandchildren. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

The moment hit close to home for Thompson, who said she would remember that patient forever.

“I know that’s what my parents would have done,” said Thompson, sharing the memory during a virtual Remembrance Ceremony on April 20, which provided an opportunity for the Brigham community to collectively honor the lives saved during the pandemic, remember those lost due to COVID-19 and look forward with hope.

The 30-minute ceremony, hosted by Spiritual Care Services and webcast via Zoom, also featured reflections from hospital leaders, music, a reading in Spanish and a discussion about resiliency and support resources for staff. The timing of the event closely coincided with when the Brigham’s COVID-19 census peaked during the first surge, hitting 171 patients on April 22, 2020.

The ceremony also marked the launch of a new display, Hearts on the Bridge, located on the Shapiro bridge. The display features more than 1,700 blue hearts to symbolize the number of patients with COVID-19 who were cared for and discharged from the Brigham, as well as 176 yellow hearts to represent the number of patients who passed away due to COVID-19 since last March.

Between April 20 and May 4, staff are encouraged to view the display and use white hearts to write their own remembrances in memory or in honor of someone affected by COVID-19, or a short personal message, and post it on the designated windows in Shapiro.

Sasha DuBois (right) sings “Amazing Grace,” with piano accompaniment by Andrew Heintz (left), during the ceremony.

Kathleen Gallivan, SDNdeN, PhD, director of Spiritual Care Services, opened the Remembrance Ceremony by recognizing the collective trauma this pandemic has caused and the healing process that many people continue to navigate.

Sunny Eappen, MD, interim president and chief medical officer, reflected on the enormous effect the pandemic has had on our lives over the past year and encouraged staff to pause, grieve if needed and find some measure of peace.

“All of us have been impacted in some way. It might’ve been someone you cared for, whom you served food to or whose room you may have cleaned,” said Eappen, who mourned the loss of his own uncle due to COVID-19. “It’s been an incredibly challenging time for all of us, and we’ll forever be changed as a result of being here at the Brigham during this time. We are now seeing a light — a light for today and a light for the future.”

The ceremony also featured a musical selection, “Amazing Grace,” performed by Sasha DuBois, MSN, RN, nursing director for the IV Therapy Team and PCA Float Pool, with piano accompaniment by Andrew Heintz, M.Div, STM, a chaplain in Spiritual Care Services.

Mayra Scott, shipping coordinator in Materials Management, led a Spanish-language reading of the poem “We Remember Them” by Rabbi Sylvan Kamens and Rabbi Jack Riemer.

Sejal Shah, MD, chief of the Division of Medical Psychiatry, provided an overview of resources available to support staff and tips for building resiliency.

Thompson, who cared for the first COVID-positive ICU patient admitted to the Brigham, was invited to share her perspective as a front-line provider during the event.

“I think we’ve all been through a lot as a community, and we’re all changed for it. I’m one of a hundred nurses on my unit, and we all have stories like this,” she said. “But we all have a little bit of hope now — hope that the worst is behind us and that maybe this year is going to be better than the last.”

View a recording of the virtual Remembrance Ceremony.

Clockwise, from upper left: Rahsaan Peters, Scott Weiner, Mardi Chadwick Balcom and Katherine Palm

Gun violence and community violence are among the most tragic injuries Scott Weiner, MD, MPH, says he witnesses on a regular basis as a physician in the Emergency Department.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” he said. “We’re so lucky to have a team with us at the Brigham that’s working on this, both for prevention and for response after violence occurs in a community.”

That team is the Violence Recovery Program (VRP), which was founded in 2011 as a collaboration between the Center for Community Health and Health Equity (CCHHE) and the Division of Trauma, Burn and Surgical Critical Care to advocate for survivors of community violence and patients with gunshot or stab wounds. An estimated 89 percent of patients in the VRP between 2018 and 2020 experienced trauma from a gunshot wound.

The group’s work was highlighted during Thorndike Quality and Safety Grand Rounds on April 9, which featured a panel discussion about addressing community violence with Mardi Chadwick Balcom, JD, senior director of the CCHHE, Katherine Palm, MSW, LCSW, an injury prevention and outreach coordinator for the Division of Trauma, Burn and Surgical Critical Care, and Rahsaan Peters, Violence Recovery program coordinator. Weiner served as the discussion’s moderator.

As a certified Level 1 trauma center, the Brigham can provide total care for every aspect of injury — from prevention through rehabilitation.

Palm opened the conversation by discussing the importance of injury prevention. When caring for a survivor of community violence, she aims to prevent, treat and reduce injury-related disability and death.

“As injury prevention professionals, what we do is very broad,” Palm said. “We influence policy and legislation, we mobilize neighborhoods and communities, we change internal practices and policies, and promote community education.”

To set the stage for what drives gun and community violence, Chadwick Balcom shared a quote from Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Global Health Equity: “Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.”

Gun violence is on the rise in Boston. The number of aggravated assaults involving a firearm increased dramatically between 2019 and 2020 — from 94 to 632 per year, according to crime statistics collected by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

When asked by an audience member about whether COVID-19 affected these statistics, Chadwick Balcom hypothesized that the stress of the pandemic, including stay-at-home orders and other restrictions, may have created additional tensions that led to violence.

VRP advocates work together with survivors of gun or community violence to begin the process of physical, emotional and spiritual healing from a traumatic experience. Their mission is to reduce the burden of someone’s exposure to violence when they leave the Brigham.

“Being a VRP advocate, you can meet a family on the worst day of their life,” Peters said. “Just being there and having compassion and empathy for that family and that patient is so important.”

Violence Recovery Program in Practice

By surveying patients who had received support from the VRP, the team learned that the most common patient needs after receiving hospital care at the Brigham are basic needs such as food and shelter, safety planning and trauma/mental health. Following a traumatic event, the VRP meets patient needs by providing services, including crisis intervention, legal advocacy, access to community resources and assistance in navigating education, employment and housing.

As the program coordinator and a VRP advocate, Peters collaborates with multidisciplinary colleagues to meet with patients as they enter the Emergency Department (ED), remain with them throughout their stay in the hospital and make frequent visits after they re-enter their community.

“There’s a lot that goes into it. I definitely feel inspired just being a part of the medical team, and they put a lot of trust in knowing that we’re going to follow up,” Peters said. “Part of my work wouldn’t be possible without a nurse doing their job or a social worker connecting us with a patient and their family. I want to thank the overall system of support that VRP has in the hospital.”

Chadwick Balcom emphasized the importance of the VRP providing continuity when caring for patients of gun violence who experience multiple transitions of care in the hospital.

“If you’re in the Emergency Department, you’re going to have one care team, and then, upon admission, you’re going to have a different team that’s taking care of you, then after discharge you’re going to go to your follow-up appointment — I think for any of us who have navigated our own system, it’s a real wakeup call,” she said. “Even for those of us who understand the system, it can be hard.”

Men, particularly men of color, are disproportionately affected by gun violence. Seventy-eight percent of VRP patients are male. Of that group, 54 percent identified as Black, 28 percent identified as Hispanic/Latinx and 16 percent identified as white.

“I think we have to be really thoughtful about the structural violence and the impact of structural racism, and how that plays out in who we’re seeing and how folks are impacted,” Chadwick Balcom said.

During the panel, Peters reviewed a case of a patient who passed away after experiencing multiple gunshot wounds. The VRP assisted the family in planning the patient’s funeral, provided emotional support and reconnected with the family three months later in group therapy at the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, a local nonprofit that supports families of homicide victims.

In another case of a patient with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, Peters shared how the VRP met him at bedside to introduce the program, coordinated and attended family meetings with social workers, and assisted him with employment opportunities after he was discharged.

“He got himself healed up and stayed in communication with VRP and was interested in putting some goals together and getting a career,” Peters said. He connected the patient with a trade union and set up a job interview. “Just being able to have that opportunity was a big resource moving forward for that young man.”

The VRP and Stepping Strong Injury Prevention Program have teamed up for the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace to support the Louis D. Brown Institute. Learn more.

Christina Nix holds her twin boys, Weston (left) and James (right), in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

As an emergency department nurse, Christina Nix regularly encounters complex medical challenges. But nothing prepared her for being the expectant mother of monochorionic diamniotic (Mo-Di) twins.

Mo-Di twins are genetically identical, originating from one egg that split into two embryos after fertilization. The babies share a placenta and blood supply, but each has their own amniotic sac, which surrounds the baby during pregnancy. Due to their shared blood supply, Mo-Di twins are at greater risk for certain complications and tend to be born prematurely.

Nix and her husband, Bryan, were thrilled to find out they would be having twins last year. When tests revealed the babies were Mo-Di twins, however, they began to worry.

“We went online and learned about all the bad things that can happen,” Nix said. “My obstetrics office couldn’t even handle this type of pregnancy because they didn’t have appropriate monitoring, so friends of mine recommended I go to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.”

Twelve weeks into the pregnancy, Christina had her first visit with Carolina Bibbo, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and director of the Brigham’s new Comprehensive Care Center for Multiples.

Launched in December, the Center for Multiples specializes in caring for pregnant women carrying two or more babies, including those that are at higher risk of complications, such as Mo-Di twin pregnancies. The clinic’s multidisciplinary team draws on their extensive experience in caring for multiples — providing expert medical care as well as compassionate psychosocial support and patient education to help families navigate the unique joys and challenges of welcoming twins, triplets or more.

The center is the only one of its kind in Massachusetts and one of just a few dedicated clinics in the country providing specialized care for mothers expecting multiples.

“Having multiples can be very exciting but overwhelming at the same time,” Bibbo said. “These pregnancies can be accompanied by higher risks of complications, but most moms and babies do extremely well. We’re really focused on making moms the centerpiece of care.”

Staff nurse Lucy Graves, MSN, RN, CBS, agreed the team is committed to making sure families feel supported.

“During a high-risk pregnancy, patients are often coming in every one to two weeks, so we really form a bond,” Graves said. “Because of our experience, and the fact that we care for twin and triplet pregnancies every day, I think we also bring a level of calm that reassures patients. You can’t guarantee everything will always go smoothly, but we can promise that we’ll be right there with them every step of the way.”

Providing a Range of Support

Over the ensuing months of Nix’s pregnancy, her care team kept a watchful eye on the babies’ growth while also offering the family reassurance. Early imaging had suggested one of the twins was smaller than expected and possibly missing out on nutrients due to the shared placenta.

Christina and Bryan Nix at home with their twin boys, James (left) and Weston (right)

At week 28, Nix was admitted to the Brigham for a projected 30 days of continuous monitoring. Four weeks later, new abnormalities were detected on her ultrasound. Nix was brought to Labor and Delivery, where her care team discovered she had developed preeclampsia, a condition characterized by high blood pressure that poses risks to both mothers and babies. Both babies were safely delivered via cesarean section, each weighing under 4 pounds, and transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Under the care of NICU staff, the twins got stronger, healthier and thrived — and headed home with their parents this January.

“Dr. Bibbo is like a saint,” Nix said. “From the first appointment there, she was very involved, talking with us every week and even taking time after hours to explain how we could move forward with things.”

Bibbo said she first became aware of the need for more personalized care for families with multiples when she was a clinical fellow in the Brigham’s former Twin Clinic, a predecessor to the Center for Multiples. Over time, she noticed patients continually express that they wished appointments covered more than just the mother’s and babies’ physical health.

“Mothers carrying multiple babies have many other psychosocial and emotional stressors that make their pregnancy experience completely different from those mothers carrying a singleton,” she said.

To address this, the center’s team includes a dedicated social worker, lactation specialist and childbirth educator. The team also collaborates with other providers in the Department of Maternal-Fetal Medicine to connect patients with nutritional support, genetic counseling, hematology services, research study opportunities and more.

In addition to hosting childbirth and breastfeeding classes specifically tailored for families of multiples, the team hosts a monthly Q&A session via Zoom with Bibbo and Graves for patients in their third trimester. The group sessions enable patients to talk to their care team — and each other — about what to expect during delivery and how to prepare their home for the babies’ arrival.

“Patients really enjoy having that safe space to talk and connect with one another,” Bibbo said. “We are blessed in Boston to have so many good hospitals with excellent specialists, but I think the need for psychosocial care, maternal needs and specialized education is often overlooked. They are all really important for helping these moms feel better prepared for the joy of the babies’ arrival and any challenges they might experience along the way.”

Francisco Marty

The Brigham community mourns the loss of Francisco Marty, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases, who died April 8 after a tragic accident while hiking in the Dominican Republic. He was 53.

A member of the Brigham community for more than 20 years, Dr. Marty is remembered as a masterful physician, researcher and mentor who specialized in the treatment of infectious diseases affecting transplant and cancer patients. Along with Lindsey Baden, MD, he built and led the clinical infectious disease consult service for patients at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In addition to his work at the Brigham, he was editor-in-chief of the journal Transplant Infectious Disease.

“Francisco was foremost an extraordinary doctor — totally committed to caring for his patients. In an era when much of medicine seems overly technical and rushed, he always devoted the time to hear people’s stories, review their records and studies, and confer with other experts,” said Paul Sax, MD, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases. “He added to this fundamental skill exceptional achievements in both clinical research and teaching. Many of us eagerly awaited his cogent interpretation of clinical trials, and he himself led many important studies. That he brought junior colleagues and trainees along for their learning made his accomplishments all the more impressive.”

As a scientist, Dr. Marty led numerous multicenter trials to study the safety and efficacy of novel treatments for influenza, cytomegalovirus, invasive fungal infections and COVID-19.

Most recently, he was the principal investigator for two clinical trials that looked at the use of remdesivir, an antiviral medication, for COVID-19 patients. They were among several studies that led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand its emergency use authorization for remdesivir to treat all hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

“Francisco was an outstanding clinician, a brilliant clinical investigator and a dedicated teacher and mentor,” said Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, chief of Infectious Diseases. “He was the expert on whom we all relied for any question involving fungal infections and could identify nearly all species of yeasts and molds from a wet mount or a histopathology slide.”

Kuritzkes recalled that during the first COVID-19 surge in Massachusetts, Dr. Marty was “personally responsible for enrolling more than 300 participants into remdesivir trials, including many Spanish-speaking Latinx patients who might otherwise have declined to participate in a clinical trial.”

As illustrious as his academic achievements were, Dr. Marty is equally remembered by colleagues for his tireless commitment to his patients, mentorship, creative problem-solving and unwavering warmth and kindness.

Sophia Koo, MD, an attending physician in Infectious Diseases and Dr. Marty’s mentee, recalled meeting Dr. Marty on her first day as a Brigham intern when he provided a consult for one of her patients. The patient, who had a severe parasitic infection, could not take the oral medication needed to resolve the infection due to the inflammation in his gut. Dr. Marty devised a novel solution — seeking permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to administer a veterinary formulation of the drug intravenously, which had never been done before with that medication. The FDA approved the request, and the patient thrived.

The experience inspired Koo to follow in his footsteps and enter the field of transplant infectious diseases.

“Francisco had such a contagious love of medicine and discovery and such deep love and compassion for his patients,” Koo said. “He was truly a maestro in the art and science of medicine. People all over the world turned to him for advice for their most challenging diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas, and he always came through with a thoughtful and well-informed opinion.”

Jose Orejas, MD, a research fellow in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, previously served as a research fellow in Infectious Diseases and participated in more than a dozen studies with Dr. Marty over his three years with the division. In that time, Orejas said he came to cherish Dr. Marty as a mentor and continued to seek out opportunities to collaborate on research.

“Francisco transformed the way I was through his guiding example,” Orejas said. “He taught me precision and compassion. He made his clinical research feel so natural that you couldn’t tell we were developing the medicine of the future. He was an absolute mastermind. Losing my mentor in such an unexpected way hurts so much and is a major loss for transplant patients all over the world. I will miss him.”

Colleagues also fondly remembered that, as serious as Dr. Marty was about his work, he embraced opportunities to bring joy to others.

“He loved puns and taking selfies with all of his many friends in the hospital,” said Sarah Hammond, MD, a former Brigham attending in Infectious Diseases who now practices at Massachusetts General Hospital. “He was the kind of colleague who would track me down if he knew I was having a really difficult day on the inpatient service and bring me a snack or offer to help.”

A man of many talents, Dr. Marty was also known as a gifted photographer — traveling around the world to capture the beauty of architecture, natural landscapes and, a favorite of his, scenic views of New England’s lighthouses. Several of his photos are on display in the Division of Infectious Diseases’ offices, and he regularly showcased his work at the Department of Medicine’s annual “Medicine and the Muse” event.

In a 2018 interview with Brigham Bulletin, Dr. Marty explained he was first drawn to photography while attending medical school in his home country of Venezuela.

“In addition to helping me find a meaningful work-life balance, art is a very good way to communicate with colleagues, trainees and patients,” he said at the time. “When my patients find out I do photography, it becomes a way to talk about something that’s different from their illness — it provides a common ground, solace and hope for so many of them.”

Dr. Marty earned his medical degree from Jose Maria Vargas School of Medicine, Universidad Central de Venezuela, and completed his residency at the Jacobi Medical Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where he served as chief resident. He completed his infectious diseases fellowship at the Brigham.

A memorial Mass will be celebrated for Dr. Marty on Saturday, April 17, at 11 a.m., at St. Mary of the Assumption Church, 420 High St., Dedham, with a reception to follow. The Mass will be livestreamed from the parish website. For more information, please call 617-738-7348.

Left photo: Da’Marcus Baymon; Middle photo, from left: Hannah Green, Daniel Egan and Karen Lewis Brownell; Right photo: Sophonie Bernard

Bruising from N95 respirators, feelings of isolation and uncertainty about when normalcy will return — these are just a few of the images, memories and themes that came to mind for a group of Emergency Department staff when asked to reflect on their experiences over the past year as part of a novel music therapy project that transforms front-line staff’s personal reflections into lyrics and song.

The program, called Frontline Songs, was created by a Massachusetts General Hospital physician to provide healing via music to health care workers who have and continue to serve on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants are interviewed over Zoom by a songwriter about their experiences, and their stories are crafted into an original piece of music.

At the Brigham, Da’Marcus Baymon, MD, chief resident in the ED, Sophonie Bernard, emergency services assistant, Daniel Egan, MD, emergency physician, Hannah Green, PA-C, physician assistant and Karen Lewis Brownell, RN, an ED nurse, worked with Frontline Songs team member and Grammy-nominated American folk singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier to create a song that would articulate what they went through during the pandemic.

“I find a lot of times that it’s really hard for me to put into words what we, as health care workers, have been through when family or friends ask us. They see it all on TV, but when they actually ask you what’s going on, it is difficult to articulate what we experience day to day and all the emotions that go along with it,” Green said.

Green said reflecting on memories from the past year to brainstorm lyrics served as a great way to bond with her team and acknowledge, process and cope with what they went through as health care workers.

“This session allowed us all to share our own perspectives and emotions,” Green said. “It was comforting to hear from my coworkers that they’re feeling very similarly, and it was therapeutic to collaborate and form lyrics that help reflect these experiences and emotions.”

Baymon started singing and writing songs as a way to process and release his thoughts at 8 years old. He learned to play the violin in elementary school, then moved on to the saxophone in middle school. In college, he even considered changing his major from pre-med to music.

He hasn’t had much time to work on songwriting this past year, so Baymon saw this as a great opportunity to reignite his musical talents in a meaningful way.

“It was remarkable that all of us could talk about our different experiences and come up with a product that ultimately braids our experiences together,” Baymon said. “I felt closer to my colleagues. These are the people that I work with, but we don’t really get to talk as much on shift or share our experiences and the things that we’re struggling with outside of work that are totally a part of who we are as humans. It’s really connected us on a different level.”

Bernard also found the experience to be extremely therapeutic.

“Having a song that touches on everything that was hard to cope with at the time is like being able to tell the story of COVID in a different way,” Bernard said. “If I am looking at it from the positive side, what came from this whole experience was growth and resiliency — learning to not only be there for the patients but also for our family, community and ourselves.

During the two-hour songwriting session, the team discussed the difficulties they faced not only at the bedside but also outside of work. Although health care workers were celebrated nationwide as heroes during the pandemic, staff who participated in the session said they also felt stigmatized at times due to their proximity to infected patients. ED staff also spoke about the loneliness of coming back to an empty home, as many lived apart or stayed away from family earlier in the pandemic to avoid the risk of potentially exposing loved ones.

“In the beginning of the pandemic, we were all called ‘health care heroes,’ and we appreciated the appreciation. But at the end of the day, this is our job. This is what we were trained to do, and this is what we want to do,” Green said. “Fast-forward a few months later, and all of a sudden we were looked at as almost being contaminated.”

Lewis Brownell discussed the obstacles she faced when taking care of her elderly parents and her young grandchildren as a front-line nurse during the pandemic. She was excited to have a creative space to share her emotions and experiences.

“I love reflection. I keep a five-year journal, and each year I write a few things I’m grateful for every day. I’m on year four of this one book and just to read what I’ve been through exactly a year before — we’ve come so far, but to reflect back on it, that year was really tough,” Lewis Brownell said.

Before the session, Lewis Brownell asked other nurses what words came to mind when they looked back on the last year. They responded with phrases like resilient, courage, strength and coming together.

“It just lightened my heart to really put it into words and then to watch Mary’s creative process,” Lewis Brownell said. “Within three hours, we came up with this beautiful song that says we’re stronger together and we’ve been through all of the hard times, and the song ends on such a positive note with vaccinations and getting closer to being normal.”

Egan, the Emergency Department program director, said the experience was impactful and brought the ED members together.

“While we all have different roles in the ED, what we and the songwriter quickly realized is that there were so many shared experiences between us,” Egan said. “It was amazing to take such broad thoughts and distill them into short phrases that tried to capture the full range of emotions that felt truthful and resonated with all of us. At the end of it, I left feeling hopeful and optimistic which I think comes through in the song.”

Listen to the team’s original song, “Normal Soon.”

Top row, from left: Bernie Jones, Zara Cooper and Maddy Pearson; Middle row, from left: Cheri Blauwet, Shelly Anderson and Allison Moriarty; Bottom: Wanda McClain

When reflecting on the complex balancing act that women in the workplace must often navigate, Zara Cooper, MD, MSc, FACS, Kessler director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health, finds comfort in a quote from Orpah Winfrey: “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at one time.”

Those words of wisdom were among several inspirational quotes that female leaders at the Brigham shared to kick off a broader discussion about women’s experiences during the first Lead the Change forum on March 30. The new series’ inaugural event, held in conjunction with Women’s History Month, featured reflections from a panel of six leaders about the challenges and opportunities they’ve faced in their personal and professional lives.

Moderated by Bernie Jones, EdM, vice president of Public Policy, Lead the Change is a new, virtual monthly forum dedicated to exploring ideas and views on issues related to public policy, advocacy, social justice and health care innovation.

Cooper — an acute care surgeon, trauma surgeon and surgical intensivist — said she has learned that having supportive family, friends and colleagues can make all the difference in personal and professional success.

“One thing that that has helped me is that I really let go of my pride and leaned on ‘the village,’” Cooper said. “At work, it’s recognizing that I’m part of a clinical and administrative team. COVID has also added this layer of transparency and humanity to all of us. Our co-workers see into our homes and see our children come through the door, and that’s actually improved and enriched the relationships I have here at work.”

Shelly Anderson, MPM, executive vice president and chief operating officer, noted that support networks don’t have to be limited to close contacts and encouraged all women leaders to help create opportunities for women in more junior positions.

“We all need to help each other to the next rung,” Anderson said.

Work and Family

The demands of supporting a family while juggling a career was a central theme that several panelists explored.

Allison Moriarty, vice president of Research Operations, recalled her decision to return to the workforce after taking some time off to raise two children.

“What I actually learned during that period was that I really missed being able to work, and I felt like working brought a really important balance to my life,” Moriarty said. “While I know there can be incredible pressures and strains that come from many different responsibilities, I’ve found that I’m a much better mother by virtue of having so much in my life professionally and socially.”

Maddy Pearson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, senior vice president of Clinical Services and chief nursing officer, acknowledged the challenges of being a working mother — remembering how she was rarely able to stay home with her two children when the schools declared a snow day because, as a nurse, she was expected to report to work. At the same time, she added, the role-modeling that took place set a valuable example during her children’s formative years.

“I have always said I’ve been a better mother because I worked full-time ever since my kids were 6 weeks of age,” Pearson said. “In prepping for this conversation, I asked both of my children what they thought. I said, ‘I’ve worked all my life. Did you miss me?’ They said, ‘Of course we missed you, Mom. We love you.’ But they both articulated to me that they have grown and learned so much by seeing my professional life and how I balance both worlds.”

Panelists discussed the unjust expectation that society places on women to be the primary caregiver for children or other family members. Speakers also acknowledged that many working mothers face significant financial barriers, particularly given the steep costs of child care —an expense on par with college tuition. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Massachusetts ranks second in the nation for most expensive infant care.

“Our child care system now is so dependent on socioeconomic status. In sports, we say something is a pay-to-play system. It’s the same for child care,” said Cheri Blauwet, MD, a sports medicine specialist in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and director of the Kelley Adaptive Sports Research Institute at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. “Some women have options while others don’t, and it’s so unjust and exacerbates all of the inequities that we’ve seen play out through COVID. These are very expensive services, and we could do better and emulate other parts of the world where the systems are quite different.”

Wanda McClain, MPA, vice president of Community Health and Health Equity, noted that working women may also be coping with other family responsibilities, such as elder care.

“We often don’t know what people are bringing into the workplace with them, so having that opportunity to be open and supportive of people within whatever stage of their life they might find themselves is really important,” McClain said.

Helping all staff achieve better work-life balance is an area where institutional culture can play a significant role, Anderson said.

“I think some of the culture work we’ve done around the Brigham Experience over the past couple of years brought up that. As a community, we’re perfectionists — we’re very ambitious and often take on too much,” Anderson said. “We’re all trying to be much more cognizant of what we’re putting on everyone’s plates so that we can all have more balance. It’s not a gender issue. It’s a workplace issue, and we need to look at it across the board.”

Embracing Intersectionality

Panelists also explored the intersecting identities some women navigate in the workplace.

“As a Black woman, when I step into a room I step in as both identities,” McClain said. “If there’s any potential interaction that feels a little off, is it because I’m a woman or is it because I’m Black? I can’t separate them.”

Blauwet, a wheelchair user, reflected on her experiences as a woman and physician with a visible disability, recalling how challenging it can be to be perceived as a one-dimensional identity rather than a complex, full person.

“I’ve seen that shift over the last five or 10 years. There’s been an increasing recognition of intersectionality adding value to our environment,” she said. “It’s been really encouraging to see that, and I hope it continues to evolve.”

Accepting one’s identity as a leader can also be an unexpected experience for many women, panelists said.

“Think about where you can make a difference,” Cooper said. “One of the things that’s been very refreshing is my imposter syndrome hasn’t gone away, even at this level. Everybody has it, so get over it. If you’re not going to be at the table, who is?”

The next Lead the Change event, “Earth Day Climate Change and Sustainability Forum,” will be held Thursday, April 22, at noon.

From left: Paulette Cooper, Sunny Eappen and Rosalie Bryan share a moment outside the Hale vaccination clinic after booking vaccine appointments for Cooper and Bryan.

Paulette Cooper, a patient care associate (PCA) on Braunwald Tower 8AB, was alarmed by what she was reading and hearing about the COVID-19 vaccine on social media and in the news this past winter.

“You heard people say it’s going to change your metabolism or that they’re going to put a chip in your body and track you. Maybe it sounds silly, but it was frightening,” Cooper said. “I remember watching the news and this woman from New York took it and got Bell’s palsy. That got me scared.”

As the Brigham started to roll out its employee vaccination program, Cooper agonized over what to do. In some moments, she was certain she would get the vaccine. But then her mind would race with “what if” scenarios and she decided, no, it wasn’t for her. She went back and forth in this pattern for weeks.

“I remember one day I was on the floor and ran into a co-worker who was so excited. She was saying, ‘Paulette, what do you think about the vaccine? I’m going to get mine today,’” Cooper recalled. “I said, ‘OK, you get it and tell me about it.’ I still didn’t know what I was going to do.”

All three COVID-19 vaccines being administered in the United States — Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech — have been tested in large, diverse populations in clinical trials and shown to be safe and effective.

Health care workers became eligible in phase 1 of the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan, which launched in December 2020. To date, about 75 percent of Mass General Brigham employees have received the vaccine. While that rate well exceeds the general population — about 32 percent of Massachusetts residents have received one dose — it still means about one in four employees across the system have chosen not to get vaccinated or remain undecided.

For some who are unsure about receiving the vaccine, unanswered questions about how it could affect certain health conditions, such as pregnancy, remain a significant concern. For others, misinformation on social media about possible risks has created seeds of doubt. The speed of the vaccine’s development, as well as cultural or religious perspectives, have also led some to distrust it. For some people, the reality that the vaccine is so new may be reason enough for discomfort.

But there is also a population of COVID-19 vaccine “converts” — those who were once reluctant and then chose to get vaccinated after learning more about the science.

Linda Harkess

“In deciding whether to get the vaccine, I went from skepticism to certainty,” said Linda Harkess, MSN, RN, a nurse on Braunwald Tower 11ABD. “My skepticism stemmed from who I am, coupled with my experiences as a patient. I am an immigrant and a person of color — someone who has been on the receiving end of culturally incompetent care and a stereotype on numerous occasions, leading to a lack of trust in the health care system.”

As Harkess witnessed patients in a similar demographic to her die from COVID-19 at a disproportionately higher rates, she said she was initially leery of claims about the vaccine’s safety and decided against getting it. But as time went on, she kept an open mind and challenged herself to learn more.

“I was curious as to why a certain population of people are more susceptible to contracting and succumbing to this deadly virus. That curiosity provoked me to examine the affected population more closely,” Harkess said. “I focused special attention on the high-risk criteria, the clinical trials and the scientist who developed these vaccinations. I also studied the mRNA mechanism of action and how it counteracts the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the possible side effects and benefits of the vaccine and long-term illness from the COVID-19 disease. After a thorough review of reliable resources and learning the pertinent facts about the vaccine and the deadly COVID-19 disease, I made the informed decision and became the first member of my household to be vaccinated.”

‘I Have That Extra Protection Now’

Even after talking to more colleagues and family members about their experiences with the vaccine, Cooper still found herself conflicted — that is, until she and several of her colleagues received a visit at work from an employee vaccination taskforce comprising several clinical and equity leaders at the Brigham. Over the past several months, the group has reached out to groups of staff to answer questions about the vaccine, hear their concerns and help separate myth from fact.

Cooper attended the educational session with her sister, Rosalie Bryan, who is also a PCA on Braunwald Tower 8AB and was, at the time, even more reluctant about getting vaccinated. They both listened eagerly to medical experts in the room, led by Sunny Eappen, MD, the Brigham’s interim president and chief medical officer.

“I was afraid I would die if I took the vaccine,” Bryan said. “I told the doctor that I didn’t know what to do because the media has been saying all these things, and you don’t know what road to choose. But when he came and broke it all down, I felt a lot better. I said to him that I would take it, but I was scared to go.”

In response, Eappen offered to go with her. Bryan and Cooper looked at each other and smiled. “I said, ‘OK, let’s go,’” Cooper recalled.

After the session ended, Eappen accompanied them to the vaccination clinic in the Hale building to help schedule their appointments. The two sisters are now fully vaccinated.

“It’s a wonderful feeling being vaccinated,” Bryan said.

Cooper agreed. “I feel safer. If I’m exposed to the virus, I know I have that extra protection now to help me,” she said. “Having the doctor break it all down helped me understand the vaccine better, and my sister helped me make up my mind too. All my family was getting it at that point, and I said I’m not going to be the only one left.”

Pregnant and Vaccinated

As a resident in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Alice Abernathy, MD, has witnessed firsthand how COVID-19 has affected women during pregnancy and childbirth.

At 24 weeks pregnant, Alice Abernathy decided to get the COVID-19 vaccine. In this January 2020 photo, she celebrates receiving her second dose a few weeks later.

“I carefully monitor our pregnant patients, and not uncommonly I gown up, put on my N95 mask and wheel a patient to the intensive care unit for respiratory support,” Abernathy recently wrote in a column for Brigham Clinical & Research News. “The data, reports and articles informing their care buzz constantly through my brain. I can recount in excruciating detail each patient’s clinical decline to intubation and all the steps that lead to delivery by Caesarean section while the mother remains passive, sedated on a ventilator.”

As a pregnant person herself, this knowledge has also hit especially close to home.

“I look closely at these future parents — their bellies often similar in size to my own — and I fear for them and for myself,” she wrote. “Their faces remain with me. I wonder, could I too be a patient for whom pregnancy ends with unknowingly experiencing the birth of my first child?”

When the Brigham first offered the vaccine to employees, Abernathy found herself reluctant. Pregnant women are at higher risk for a severe form of the disease, and infection also increases the risk of preterm birth. Yet none of the vaccine trials had included pregnant or lactating women — a common practice in clinical trials — leaving her with unanswered questions about if or how the vaccine could affect her baby.

After doing more research and speaking with colleagues in maternal-fetal medicine and reproductive infectious disease to weigh the benefits and potential risks, Abernathy made her decision. At 24 weeks into her pregnancy, she received the vaccine.

“I promptly felt tears well up in my eyes. I suddenly realized that the weight of the fear I was carrying, and diligently ignoring, was slowly receding,” Abernathy wrote. “I felt overwhelmingly privileged to be offered the vaccine and to have the opinion of my colleagues to help guide my decision to take the vaccine.”

More information about COVID-19 vaccination for staff is available on PikeNotes.

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Teams from the Brigham and the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard Association (RTH) joined forces to administer nearly 800 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to RTH residents and staff over two days. Hosted on March 28 and March 30, the community-based initiative invited RTH residents and staff to the Hale clinic for a safe, comfortable and convenient vaccination experience. In total, approximately 50 employees helped staff the two clinics.

Monica Aurilio, BSN, RN, nurse-in-charge in Neurosciences Intermediate Care, had been excited to kick off 2020 by launching a wellness initiative for her colleagues on the night shift as the new year got underway. But those plans, like so many others, were paused as the pandemic emerged. This year, Aurilio was delighted to find another way to promote health and wellness for nurses: by discussing her experiences on a new resiliency-focused podcast produced by the Department of Nursing.

“I was really excited to learn about the podcast and be asked to participate on an episode about sleep health with Dr. Charles Czeisler,” said Aurilio, who has worked overnights for 25 years in Neurosciences Intermediate Care.

After the immense challenges of the first surge of the pandemic, nursing leaders sought a new way to provide information and tools focused on resiliency and self-care for nurses.

“We thought a podcast would be powerful because nurses can access it anytime, regardless of their work schedules,” said Danika Medina, MBA, RN, FACHE, NEA-BC, associate chief nurse for Ambulatory Services and Procedural Areas. “The topics we cover are relevant to nurses everywhere — at the Brigham, across the Mass General Brigham system and beyond. Throughout the pandemic, nurses everywhere have experienced stress, grief, fear and uncertainty like never before.”

The eight-episode series, hosted by Maddy Pearson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, senior vice president of Clinical Services and chief nursing officer, features conversations with Brigham clinical nurses and interprofessional colleagues who share their expertise and experiences.

From left: Podcast guest Massiel Eversley and host Maddy Pearson outside the recording studio

“We wanted to create this series to give back to nurses after all they have given of themselves this past year,” said Pearson. “I have learned so much from our guests, and I hope that the information and experiences they share will inspire nurses and others to take care of themselves. They have certainly inspired me.”

Pearson and guests delve into topics including trauma-informed self-care, sleep health, moral distress and cultivating joy and a sense of belonging, among others. While most episodes cover the effects of the pandemic on nurses, the practices, tools and information that guests provide can be accessed by nurses, clinicians and anyone interested in prioritizing self-care at any time.

Christine Murphy, MS, PMHCNS-BC, CARN-AP, program director of the Brigham’s Psychiatric Nursing Resource Service, participated in a podcast episode about how the “health care superhero” label can negatively affect nurses’ well-being.

“The hero construct places an expectation of heroism on nurses, with little acknowledgment of our limitations and experiences as humans,” she explained. “The pandemic has had a significant impact on nurses, and the hero label can be detrimental when nurses assume a hero role and are so focused on taking care of others that they aren’t taking care of their own needs.”

In that episode, Murphy was joined by Susan Gabriel, MSN, RN, CCRN, of the Cardiac Surgery ICU, who shared her perspective on caring for critically ill COVID-19 patients during the first surge. The two also provided listeners with tips for self-care practices, urging nurses to carve out time to care for themselves.

“More than ever, we as nurses need to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first so that we can continue to do what we love, which is taking care of people,” Murphy said.

Episodes will be released weekly, beginning March 24, for eight weeks.

For more information about how to listen, visit brighamandwomens.org/podcasts/resiliency-roadmap.

From left: Michele Umbro and her fiancé, Jack Giordano

After having to reschedule their wedding three times due to the coronavirus pandemic, Brigham mammographer Michele Umbro, BS, RT, of the Department of Radiology, and her fiancé, Jack Giordano, were beginning to wonder when they would ever have an opportunity to celebrate their nuptials.

Then, just one day before the deadline to enter, they heard about the Boston Harbor Hotel’s “Heartfelt Thanks to Healthcare Heroes” micro-wedding giveaway. To honor first responders’ efforts during the pandemic, the hotel hosted a sweepstakes for an all-expenses-paid wedding package with 10 guests at the John Adams Presidential Suite, overlooking the Boston waterfront and valued at about $15,000.

The couple quickly filmed a video submission in February and hoped for the best.

Umbro and Giordano, a Boston firefighter, recently learned that they were one of three finalists and were invited to the hotel. When the couple arrived, the staff surprised them and announced that they were actually the winners.

“We were both kind of in shock. We did not expect to win at all,” Umbro said. “We’re just really excited especially after last year and part of this year. We haven’t been able to spend any time with our parents because we have been in these settings. After we found out we won, we thought it would be the best way to start our celebration.”

The couple became engaged in May 2019 and Umbro said they originally planned their wedding in Tuscany, Italy. But when the pandemic hit, they had to cancel their plans.

“I’m just really excited to finally get married and start this new chapter in our lives,” Umbro said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

After a year filled with so many personal and professional challenges, Umbro said they are both looking forward to safely celebrating their wedding with an intimate ceremony this May.

“Being on those front lines and having this common goal of trying to keep our patients safe and help them recover was really what was most important to us. We’re both really proud to be part of this community and these institutions,” Umbro said. “And we’re just really proud to be part of all these teams that are helping to put a stop to this pandemic.”

Umbro and Giordano met through the online dating app Bumble. Following the death of her previous partner, Umbro had contacted a medium to help process her grief. They told her that bumble bees and roses were going to be signs of a lasting love. Without Umbro telling Giordano any of this, he gave her a bouquet of red roses with one yellow rose in the center on their second date.

“For couples that have had to reschedule getting married so many times, you start to feel a little hopeless but eventually that time will come,” Umbro said. “When that time does come, it’s going to be really special, and there’s going to be so much more to celebrate.”

Samantha Cothias, a former Brigham nurse who will be graduating from medical school this spring, celebrates her match at the Brigham.

As a child, Samantha Cothias, BSN, RN, spent car rides to school pestering her father, a nurse, with questions about the human body: “What is cancer?” she recalls asking. “How does the heart work?”

Growing up in Port au Prince, Haiti, where political turmoil often prompted violence, Cothias was no stranger to injuries or blood. “There were a lot of deaths around me,” she said. “As a young child, I began to wonder, ‘How is it that I can help these people?’” She decided that she wanted to become a doctor someday.

March 19 was a landmark day for Cothias, as it was the date that she and 77 others learned of their acceptance into the Brigham’s Internal Medicine Residency Program. Of that incoming class, 55 percent are women and 30 percent are underrepresented minorities in medicine. Across all Brigham residency programs participating in Match Day — when thousands of medical school students across the country learn where they will continue their medical training — 223 aspiring physicians matched at the hospital this year.

“Between politics, public displays of racism and the global COVID-19 pandemic, this has been an exceptionally challenging year for our patients and our staff, including for the hardworking residents on the front line of care,” said Joel Katz, MD, director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program.

“We are so delighted by our Match Day results and to be able to welcome this amazing group of interns, who bring altruism, innovation, diverse domains of achievement and exceptional talent,” Katz added. “This year, we are also so thrilled by the diverse backgrounds from which these talented physicians come, adding an important dimension to their potential as local and national health care leaders. I am very hopeful that, in regard to both the pandemic and the health and well-being of our patients, brighter days lie ahead.”

The match is a homecoming for Cothias, who served as a hematology-oncology nurse at the Brigham for close to four years and has family ties at the hospital as well. After her family moved to Massachusetts when she was 12, her father, Jean Martel Cothias, BSN, RN, now a nurse on Shapiro 7 East, began working as a patient care assistant (PCA) in the Brigham’s Emergency Department before obtaining his nursing degree over a decade ago. Marching in his footsteps, Cothias volunteered at the Brigham, helping transport patients, when she was still in high school. While pursuing her nursing degree at the University of Massachusetts Boston, she completed an obstetric rotation at the Brigham and worked as a PCA at the hospital for three years.

Cothias unveils her Match Day results.

As a nurse, Cothias enjoyed interacting with patients, but she soon realized that she craved some of the responsibilities and opportunities that being a physician would create. Therefore, while still working as a nurse, she continued her education and was accepted into New York Medical College.

Though she will bear a new title when she returns to the Brigham, Cothias anticipates that the environment will feel familiar. “The Brigham does a very good job at making people feel equal,” she said. “The community at Brigham is not just the physicians; it’s also the nurses, the ancillary support, transport. We all have a mentality that everyone is our patient, and I’m excited to be going back to a community that has nurtured me for so long.”

As a physician, Cothias has emerging hopes of being involved in research. Unanswered questions related to COVID-19 infections are particularly compelling to her, given their overlap with her passion for cardiology and relationship to inflammatory phenomena she has observed as a hematology-oncology nurse.

Cothias’ family shared in her joy on Match Day as her parents, brother and sister-in-law got together on FaceTime to experience the big reveal together.

“We were so excited. My wife was crying. I was crying. My son and his wife were crying. It was all tears of joy. The only one not crying was the dog, who was trying to figure out what was going on with everyone,” said her father, Jean Martel. “There are really no words to express our happiness. They say money can help you have a good life, but some things are worth a lot more — the joy this match brings to my family. It was an awesome day.”

When Cothias made the decision to go to medical school, Jean Martel remembered his daughter showing him the four hospital ID badges she had already acquired from her previous roles at the Brigham.

“She told me, ‘Dad, I’ll be back for the fifth one,’” he remembered. “She had so many residency interviews, but she said the only place she wanted to match at was the Brigham. This hospital is in her blood. I’m so proud of her. She has not only followed in my footsteps but also is going further than I, which is what you hope to see your kids do.”

For Cothias, the match is dream come true. “I had a goal for myself since I was little: I wanted to be a doctor, and I wanted to be in an institution that nourishes individuals,” she said. “It’s not often that someone my age can say that they have accomplished their dream, and that was the overwhelming sensation I had on Match Day. I felt that ‘little me’ was looking up and telling me, ‘You’ve made it. You can only go up from here.’”

In their work as athletic trainers and physical therapists, Michael Belanger ATC, PT, MSPT, and Jim Zachazewski, ATC, PT, DPT, both of the Sports Medicine Service in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s/Mass General Health Care Center, Foxborough, can often be seen sprinting onto the field to assist an injured athlete, attending to players on the sidelines or collaborating with physicians to provide injury treatment and prevention programs.

Michael Belanger

During the pandemic, their role as liaisons between student athletes and their care providers has taken on added importance and, like many other health care professionals, expanded in scope to meet their community’s rapidly evolving needs.

Belanger and Zachazewski — two of the 10 staff supporting the Brigham’s Athletic Training team — are now not only evaluating injuries, providing immediate and rehabilitative care for injured high school athletes or taping ankles, but they are also educating local school system administrators, athletic directors, coaches, parents and student athletes on how to minimize the spread of COVID-19.  Additionally, they have played an integral role in creating national policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among student athletes across the U.S. for the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA).

Infection control has always been part of athletic training policies, but it has mostly concerned the risk of bloodborne infections in injuries, such as those that might occur with a laceration or fracture. Respiratory illnesses historically haven’t been a major focus for the field.

Although Belanger and Zachazewski acknowledge that they are not infection control experts, as the pandemic emerged, they saw an unmet need — and an opportunity to adapt the expertly crafted, evidence-based policies in place at the Brigham for their community. In February 2020, they launched themselves into establishing COVID-19 protocols for student athletes when athletic trainers and facilities needed it most.

Jim Zachazewski

“There really were not any clinical research papers, policies or standards relative to the prevention and transmission of influenza or upper respiratory infection in athletic training facilities,” let alone any COVID-specific materials, Zachazewski said. “So we had to jump in, just like a lot of primary care providers and nurses when the pandemic started.”

After 10 days of drafting and tailoring the infection control policies put in place at the Brigham to fit athletic training facilities, Belanger and Zachazewski uploaded their finished work to the NATA’s online forum. It was downloaded more than 4,000 times. In recognition of their efforts, Belanger and Zachazewski were asked to join NATA’s taskforce for infection control. They worked with 18 other experts from across the country to produce professional standards for athletic training facilities nationwide.

The issues addressed in Belanger and Zachazewski’s policy to curtail infection spread included relocating common materials found inside a training facility, such as water coolers and gear, to minimize traffic; maintaining proper cleaning of hard surfaces, medical kits and equipment; and providing necessary personal protective equipment and proper disposal procedures.

Belanger and Zachazewski first noticed the need for COVID-19 protocols at a local level. With the Brigham, they provide an athletic training outreach program and team physician coverage to Carver High School, Foxborough High School, King Philip High School, Pembroke High School and Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School.

Belanger, who also cares for patients through Rehabilitation Services and serves as clinical supervisor of Athletic Training for Orthopaedic Surgery, said the schools’ athletic training facilities — which are typically small, shared spaces — needed to have the same standard of care as a physical therapy clinic or a physician’s office at the Brigham to limit the spread.

“One of the strengths of working at the Brigham is that there’s a wealth of information and a depth of knowledge, process, policy and procedure that is available to draw on. We realized that what we needed to do was adapt existing resources, rather than create new ones,” Zachazewski said.

An Evolving Field

Belanger and Zachazewski first learned about the athletic training profession as high school students. Belanger saw the athletic trainer at his high school as a role model and the profession as a way to participate in sports throughout his life as a contributor rather than solely as a fan. Zachazewski was a student athletic trainer for his high school and eventually his college.

“I’ve been taping ankles and taking care of injured student athletes since 1970,” Zachazewski said. “I feel strongly that we’ve got to bring the high-quality standards of health care into student athletics.”

Belanger said the pandemic has prompted the athletic training field to change for the better.

“Typically, as an athletic trainer, we tend to think about dealing with athletes from the standpoint of injury and occasionally illness. Now, illness has really been brought to the forefront,” Belanger said. “Infection can happen on the field and on the sidelines. At a game, there needs to be a certain standard for my surroundings to be able to prevent and control the spread of infection.”

Belanger and Zachazewski said building policy at a national level for other athletic trainers has been a very rewarding experience.

“This pandemic has shown that we all need to be able to manage what’s in the best interest of the student athlete,” Belanger said.

Carl J. Shapiro

The Brigham community mourns the loss of Carl J. Shapiro, a distinguished philanthropist and longtime supporter of the Brigham, who died on March 7. He was 108 years old.

Mr. Shapiro and his late wife, Ruth, created the Shapiro Family Foundation in 1961, and were well-known in Boston and beyond for their abundant generosity and dedication to advancing health care, education and the arts.

“Through their extraordinary generosity and vision, Carl and Ruth Shapiro displayed an unwavering commitment to the Brigham for more than 30 years. Their legacy will endure in our community for generations to come,” said Sunil Eappen, MD, MBA, interim president and chief medical officer.

The Shapiro family’s most recognizable contribution was a momentous 2005 gift that supported the construction and establishment of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center — enabling an effort to transform cardiology care at the Brigham.

In addition, the Shapiro family’s gifts have supported several initiatives across Emergency Medicine, Oncology, Women’s Health and many other vital research and education programs.

“Carl and Ruth’s legendary philanthropy has helped the Brigham dramatically transform care for countless patients and their loved ones,” Eappen said.

Born in Boston, Mr. Shapiro began his career during the Great Depression — leaving his studies at Boston University to work for his father’s coat-manufacturing business. In 1939, he transformed it into a women’s dress company, Kay Windsor, and continued to grow the business and guide its success until selling it to Vanity Fair in 1971.

“He became known as ‘the Cotton King’ for bringing inexpensive cotton dresses into every woman’s closet,” loved ones wrote in Mr. Shapiro’s obituary. “With his captivating sense of humor and the capacity to approach life with a ‘glass-half-full’ philosophy, he met life’s challenges with determination, optimism and infinite hard work.”

Through the Shapiro Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro supported numerous nonprofits in Boston and beyond. In the past decade, the foundation has awarded approximately $6.4 million in grants to more than 80 community-based organizations in such areas as disability inclusion, youth arts and youth empowerment.

“[Mr. Shapiro] enjoyed teaching his daughters his values and emphasized the importance of helping others,” his obituary stated. “What he had earned in business, he believed, should be shared to help those in need.”

Loved ones described Mr. Shapiro as a “hands-on partner” with the organizations he supported.

“Carl was known for poring over architectural plans, participating in many ‘hard hat’ visits, consulting with the groups who would occupy a building and making innumerable suggestions to improve the project,” his obituary stated. “He would say that no detail is insignificant, from the size of the patient rooms to the art on the walls, which he believed strongly was good for patient morale.”

In addition to his wife, Ruth, Mr. Shapiro is predeceased by his daughter Rhonda (Ronny) Zinner. He is survived by his daughters Ellen Jaffe and Linda Waintrup; his son-in-law, Michael Zinner; and many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other loved ones.

From left: Sunny Eappen, Shelly Anderson and Giles Boland listen as George Player responds to an employee question during the forum’s question-and-answer session.

One year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, members of the Brigham’s senior leadership team gathered to reflect on lessons learned from the past year, current areas of focus for the organization and the Brigham’s path forward in this next stage of pandemic recovery.

Hosted as a virtual forum for staff on March 11, the event featured a wide-ranging conversation between Sunny Eappen, MD, interim president and chief medical officer, Shelly Anderson, MPM, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Giles Boland, MD, president of the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, followed by an interactive question-and-answer session.

Eappen opened the discussion by acknowledging all that the Brigham community has endured over the past year.

“It has been really hard. I know it. I see it as I walk around and as I work. People are tired, exhausted and a little bit scared. The future, although I am optimistic, still remains a little bit uncertain,” Eappen said. “As leaders, all of us want to acknowledge that we appreciate the stress that all of you have been through and commend all of the work that you’ve done. It’s phenomenal.”

Anderson noted how the past year has reaffirmed the Brigham’s institutional values: We Care, We’re Stronger Together, We Pursue Excellence and We Create Breakthroughs.

“Our values are alive, and they’ve been achieved in many amazing ways over the past year,” Anderson said. “They are what will hold us together as we move forward into the unknown — but with a lot of hope — to the end of the tunnel that we’ve been in.”

Boland said he has been profoundly impressed by the resilience and strength staff have demonstrated in the face of such trying and prolonged circumstances.

“We’ve really worked hard together, and we’re so much better for it,” Boland said. “That goes so much to who we are here at the Brigham — our culture and the way we work together, the way we respect each other, the way we reach out. I know many of you stepped up and helped the organization and patients. In some ways, it has been the best part of my career to see this work we’ve all done.”

Looking Ahead

In reflecting on lessons learned over the past year, leaders noted how the pandemic’s challenges inspired a wave of innovation and agility as the organization embraced new ways of working. Examples include the rapid and successful adoption of virtual care, making equity a priority in everything the Brigham does and collaborating more closely across the Mass General Brigham system.

Looking ahead to the coming year and beyond, the leadership team highlighted several areas of focus, such as strengthening the institution’s financial foundation; elevating the patient and employee experience; advancing diversity, equity and inclusion through initiatives such as United Against Racism and a reinvigorated focus on community health; and developing structures to better manage performance and prioritization of initiatives.

The past year has also brought the importance of work-life balance and staff wellness sharply into focus. Leaders expressed their concern about burnout and asked departments and teams to reevaluate practices that don’t support staff wellness, such as holding non-emergency meetings outside of normal working hours.

“We have two modes right now, and one of them is crisis mode. I think we all have to take time to reflect and determine whether or not the issue of the moment is really a crisis or something that we can work on in a relatively normal fashion,” Anderson said. “People have been in crisis mode for a solid year, so we all need to start taking a step back and saying, OK, what are my personal boundaries again?”

In the face of so much transition, Eappen emphasized that change always requires balance.

“I was here when we first formed Partners and now Mass General Brigham. I have never seen the movement towards systemness and aligning like I have in the last six months or so, and I think it is really good. I am completely committed to working within MGB to create this seamless patient experience that goes across all our hospitals,” Eappen said. “I’m also committed to completely maintaining the phenomenal culture that we have here at the Brigham and the uniqueness that we have. We need both of those things to really grow and excel.”

Lora Bankova recently launched a clinical trial to better understand post-COVID anosmia.

Last March, Kara VanGuilder took a sip of her morning coffee and nearly gagged. It tasted off — almost foul.

As the day went on, VanGuilder noticed that, in fact, nothing tasted right. Her mind flashed back to recent headlines about the emerging coronavirus epidemic in Europe and Asia and a new, unusual symptom that people were experiencing: the loss of taste and smell.

VanGuilder remembers the unsettling realization that came next. “Oh, my God. I think I have COVID,” she recalled thinking.

Sure enough, VanGuilder, a fellowship coordinator in the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in early March 2020, just days before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. Soon after, VanGuilder completely lost her sense of taste and smell — a phenomenon known as anosmia. Even after recovering from other symptoms, she couldn’t smell or taste anything for two months.

One year later, VanGuilder has regained only about 50 percent of both senses. In addition to her decreased sense of taste and smell, she now experiences phantom odors, such as natural gas, which has caused her to worry there’s a gas leak in her apartment. Meanwhile, certain tastes and smells still don’t sit right. Foods she used to enjoy, such as chocolate and peanut butter, taste rancid.

“It’s lowered my quality of life,” VanGuilder said. “I definitely took my senses of smell and taste for granted until I lost them.”

Anosmia is now regarded as one of COVID-19’s most common — and puzzling — symptoms, with scientists still struggling to understand its causes, why it only affects some people with COVID-19 and why some regain their senses quickly while others never recover them.

Inspired by an unexpected connection with a colleague-turned-patient, one Brigham allergist and researcher is working to solve the mystery behind this perplexing and often distressing symptom.

An Unexpected Link

When she isn’t caring for patients at the Allergy and Clinical Immunology clinic at 850 Boylston St., Lora Bankova, MD, studies the relationship between allergies and inflammation at the Jeff and Penny Vinik Center for Allergic Disease Research in the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine.

Prior to the pandemic, Bankova had begun investigating how exposure to allergens affected the olfactory mucosa — a small region in upper nasal cavity that contains the cells responsible for our sense of smell.

“We were thinking eventually of looking into how viruses affect this region, but then COVID hit and, all of a sudden, we were seeing a virus that caused people to profoundly lose their sense of smell very abruptly,” Bankova said. “As the months went on, we started realizing that not everybody gets their sense of smell back right away — that for some people it’s partial recovery, where they recover 20 to 30 percent fairly rapidly and then very slowly their sense of smell comes back. But there are some rare people out there who, six months or almost a year later, still haven’t fully recovered their sense of smell.”

Bankova happens to work just steps away from one of those rare people living with long-term, post-COVID anosmia: VanGuilder, who has an office next door to Bankova’s in the Hale building.

It wasn’t long before the two started chatting about VanGuilder’s personal experiences with anosmia — first as casual conversations between officemates and, eventually, as doctor and patient in the clinic.

The alignment between Bankova’s own research interests and the evolving pandemic, as well as an unexpected personal connection, stimulated both her curiosity and compassion.

Inspired to dig deeper into the mysteries surrounding post-COVID anosmia, Bankova and her research colleagues recently launched a clinical trial that will look at the differences in olfactory mucosa cells of people with and without post-COVID anosmia. The team hopes to understand why some people regain their sense of smell and/or taste and uncover any biological clues that may point to a potential treatment.

For a scientist who never envisioned herself conducting human studies, Bankova says launching this trial was an unexpected career twist.

“I always imagined that the way I would be a physician-scientist is by talking to patients, becoming interested in a clinical question and then conducting mouse studies to find the answer from a mechanistic standpoint,” Bankova said. “I think that if it wasn’t for Kara, I probably still would’ve just been intrigued by this problem and read a lot about it. Between this personal connection and it being the right time, in terms of where my research was headed, I felt an additional motivation to get this study going.”

Exploring the Mystery

A large part of what makes this area ripe for investigation is that there are still so many unknowns surrounding post-COVID anosmia, Bankova said.

“As a patient, you never want to be the ‘interesting’ patient,” she said. “But as a scientist, it’s always exciting to work on a mystery. For most things in medicine, we can come up with some hypothesis for why something might be happening, and we don’t have a very good one yet here.”

When people lose their sense of smell, Bankova explained, there often are three explanations: inflammation usually manifested as congestion, trauma that has damaged the olfactory mucosa or a defect of the signaling from the olfactory mucosa to the brain. None of those is clearly present in people with COVID-19.

One challenging aspect of studying post-COVID anosmia is that it can be difficult to access the area of the nose that’s responsible for our sense of smell, Bankova added.

“It’s very high up in the nose, and in humans it’s a tiny, tiny little area,” she explained. “Most studies that have looked into COVID in the nose so far have been doing nasal swabs in the part of the nose that conducts air, but not the part that’s responsible for our sense of smell.”

For their trial, Bankova and her team will provide study participants with sponges to collect nasal fluids and compare how those samples change over time in three groups: people who lost and regained their sense of smell and/or taste, people who continue to experience post-COVID anosmia and healthy individuals who never had COVID-19. The team will also use specialized swabs that can comfortably reach the olfactory mucosa, collect cells from that area and then conduct genetic sequencing to better understand the differences in those cells between the three groups.

While the trial is just getting started, VanGuilder said she is excited to enroll as a participant and remains optimistic that science will point to a solution.

“I believe that Dr. Bankova’s work is going to be transformative,” she said. “Maybe one day I’ll wake up and coffee will taste great again. In the meantime, I’m staying hopeful.”

Jennifer “Jay” Martell

The Brigham and Women’s community mourns the loss of Jennifer “Jay” Martell, BSN, RN, of the Intermediate Care Float Pool, who died Jan. 17 of stomach cancer. She was 54.

Mrs. Martell joined the Brigham 22 years ago on Braunwald Tower 10CD, the Neurosciences Intermediate Care Unit, and later transitioned to the Float Pool.

“Jennifer was one of a kind,” said Melissa Coughlin, BSN, RN, of Braunwald Tower 10BCD. “She was one of the strongest women I know. A funny, smart, caring, willful, determined, generous, warrior-type of woman. If nurses had numbers like athletes, hers would need to be retired.”

Siobhan Raftery, BSN, RN, CNRN, assistant nursing director of Braunwald Tower 10A and 10BCD, said she felt fortunate to have worked with Mrs. Martell.

“She was a gift, a rare gem. She always stopped to ask you how you were doing, about your family and kids,” she said. “She was a phenomenal storyteller, a dedicated nurse, mother and daughter who lived her life fully until her last moment. I will never forget her and will always miss her.”

Andrea Fonseca, MSN, RN, ANP-C, of Shapiro 8, reflected on the personal and professional lessons she learned from Mrs. Martell.

“I was a brand-new nurse when Jennifer and I met, and she taught me so many things — things about being a nurse, about standing up for what’s right, about navigating this world as a lesbian, about how to create a family and about how to be yourself and not care what anyone thinks of it,” Fonseca said. “Jennifer has left an everlasting impression on my life.”

Mrs. Martell loved adventure — skydiving, traveling and riding a motorcycle — but she was happiest at home, tinkering with something or working on a puzzle with her children and making everyone laugh, said her wife, Amy Hartmann Martell.

“Jay loved being a nurse, and she embodied all that being a nurse means. She created meaning in her life by taking care of others and would always make time for a friend, whether for conversation over coffee or to fix their broken lawnmower,” Hartmann Martell shared. “She was a problem-solver, a quintessential MacGyver and believed in working hard and getting a job done without fuss and fanfare. She had a magnetic personality. If you knew her, you loved her.”

In addition to her wife, Mrs. Martell is survived by their children, Lilja and Theo; her father, Robert “Jake” Jacobson; her brother, Erik Jacobson; and many other family members and friends.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Mrs. Martell’s name may be made to Debbie’s Dream Foundation, 2 S University Dr., #326, Plantation, FL 33324.

Bernard Lown

The Brigham community mourns the loss of Bernard Lown, MD, a retired Brigham cardiologist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, pioneering innovator and a luminary in his field. Dr. Lown died Feb. 16 of complications related to congestive heart failure. He was 99.

In a career that spanned more than five decades, Dr. Lown made pivotal contributions to cardiovascular medicine and helped changed its practice. He was also an activist and advocate for peace, and one of the co-founders of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), an organization that won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for its campaign against nuclear war.

“The world has lost a great clinician, inventor, teacher and peace activist,” said James Muller, MD, of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. Muller, a fellow founding member of IPPNW, recalled Dr. Lown’s courage and skillful, dedicated leadership. “As will all who knew him, I will miss him greatly and treasure the moments when I was able to observe his heroic acts.”

During his long and storied research career, Dr. Lown focused on major challenges in cardiovascular medicine. His investigations led to many breakthroughs, including the direct current defibrillator, now the standard of care for cardiac resuscitation. He also developed a device called the cardioverter for correcting disordered heart rhythms and introduced the use of the drug lidocaine to control heart rhythms. All of these advancements have helped make possible modern coronary care units.

Dr. Lown’s research also helped illuminate the role of psychological factors — such as stress — in heart disease, and he was among the first physicians to emphasize the importance of diet and exercise in treating heart disease.

Dr. Lown left an indelible mark on his students, many of whom vividly recalled his teachings and described Dr. Lown’s influence on their careers. The Brigham’s Bernard Lown Award for Excellence in Teaching, established in 2010, is named after Dr. Lown and celebrates physicians who are outstanding clinical teachers.

“He really was a Brigham great,” said Marshall Wolf, MD, director emeritus of the Brigham’s Medical Residency Programs, who trained under Dr. Lown during his internship year and completed a fellowship with him. “He was a great physician teacher and was beloved both by his patients and his students. He was a role model for me — someone who really cared about his patients and made sure they got the best care.”

Charles Blatt, MD, a physician in the Lown Cardiovascular Group, began working with Dr. Lown as a medical student when he spent a summer doing research in Dr. Lown’s laboratory. Blatt stayed on after his fellowship, became an associate in Dr. Lown’s practice and has been a part of the Lown Cardiovascular Group ever since. Blatt fondly recalled conducting rounds with Dr. Lown during his medical training.

“He instilled in me that it was a privilege to be a physician taking part in that very intimate interaction with the patient — to learn about their lives and to be trusted. Each person’s story was like a part of a play, and you had a front-row seat,” said Blatt. “I’ve tried to emulate the way he would teach his students in the way he taught me. There’s a handful of teachers who stand out in one’s whole career. For me, Dr. Lown stands at the top of that list.”

Dr. Lown is survived by his three children, Anne, Fredric and Naomi Lown, and five grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Louise Lown.

Fittingly for Valentine’s Day, Aubrey Love went home with her family on Feb. 14, following a 15-day stay in the NICU.

Everyone knows love is in the air on Valentine’s Day, but one for family, the holiday was cause for an extra-special celebration this year.

Aubrey Love was born prematurely at 33 weeks and three days gestation, weighing just 4 pounds and 15.7 ounces. After 15 days in the Brigham’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), she was able to go home with her parents, Jennifer Love and Robert Hall, on Feb. 14 — right on time for Valentine’s Day.

“Bringing Aubrey home was the second-best day of my life, other than the day I gave birth to her,” said her mother, Jennifer. “I would just like to thank everyone that was involved in Aubrey’s birth and NICU stay. She couldn’t have been in better hands. We are so thankful and blessed.”

Contributing to the Love and Hall family’s outstanding experience was the superb nursing care they received, Jennifer added.

“From the minute I arrived at Brigham and Women’s, all of the nurses were so amazing, especially my nurse in the delivery room, Kirsten [Loveland, BSN, RN]. She was so awesome to me during my labor. I don’t know how I would have done it without her,” she said. “Aubrey’s NICU nurses were all amazing, but her favorites were Alli [Manzelli, BSN, RN] and Katie [Clements, BSN, RN]. They were so sweet to her and really went above and beyond to make her feel comfortable.”

Lynn Detwiler

The Brigham community mourns the loss of Lynn Detwiler, BSN, RN, an oncology case manager in Care Continuum Management, who died Jan. 16 of breast cancer. She was 55.

A member of the Brigham community since 2019, Mrs. Detwiler is remembered by colleagues for her comforting presence and warm, loving nature.

“Lynn was the kindest soul and very generous with her love,” said Ania Noel-Edwards, BSN, RN, care coordination nurse. “She always had a beautiful smile and way of making you laugh, and she never really worried too much, even when her patient load was heavy. Her favorite words were, ‘It’s OK, my dear. I love you.’”

As an oncology case manager, Mrs. Detwiler was responsible for helping cancer patients and their families navigate the intricacies of admission, discharge, insurance questions, medication coverage and post-discharge services, such as connecting them with a visiting nurse or rehabilitation facility.

Above all, it was Mrs. Detwiler’s unwavering commitment to her patients and their families — even while managing her own illness — that left her colleagues in awe.

“Lynn was always interested in helping people and never complained about anything she was going through, no matter how much pain she was having or any of the side effects she had,” said Carolyn Molina, BSN, RN, care coordination nurse. “She had so much strength and this ability to make you feel at ease and welcome every time you talked to her. She was a genuine and sweet person whom I am honored to call my friend, and I greatly miss her.”

Alexandra Koffman, MSN, RN, care coordination nurse, felt a special bond with Mrs. Detwiler not only as a friend and colleague but also because they had both lived with breast cancer. Koffman, like her colleagues, also recalled how Mrs. Detwiler’s tireless work ethic and soothing words were an inspiration.

“She worked hard when most would have given into her disease,” Koffman said. “I never heard her say a discouraging word, and she was always smiling.  I will miss her.”

Lalitha Mantha, MPH, RN, a staff nurse on CWN 7 who also works as a per-diem care coordination nurse, recalled how she got to know Mrs. Detwiler after covering one of her shifts. From there, their friendship blossomed.

“Lynn is the only person who approached me to find out if there were any gaps in her work and how she could improve. I was struck by the sincerity of her request,” Mantha said. “Shortly after, I learned she was sick. I remain in awe of her ability to face the reality of her condition daily, in the lives of other cancer patients. It is my good fortune that our paths crossed and that she was my friend. I will miss her raw sense of humor and her texts with heart emojis.”

Nursing was truly Mrs. Detwiler’s calling, Noel-Edwards said.

“During my last conversation with her before she passed, Lynn said how much she missed the Brigham family. She enjoyed being here with the team,” she said. “She was extremely dedicated to her patients. There were occasions when she had a chemotherapy appointment at Dana-Farber in the afternoon and she would come into work that morning. We would tell her to stay home and rest, but she was very committed.”

Mrs. Detwiler is survived by her husband, Gregg, and their daughter, Elena. She is predeceased by her son, José Vincente.

From left: PACE physician assistants Marissa Jurkiewicz and Marissa Cauley converse with PACE hospitalist Elizabeth Petersen during morning rounds on Shapiro 7.

Physician assistant (PA) Erin Kelly-Makol, PA-C, remembers the flood of emotions she and her colleagues felt last spring as they began caring for a rapidly growing number of patients with COVID-19.

As members of the Brigham’s Physician Assistant Clinical Educator (PACE) Service — a general medical service staffed by attending hospitalists and PAs — Kelly-Makol and her colleagues were among the first medical teams that were reassigned to care for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in March 2020. Nearly one year later, PACE clinicians remain on the pandemic’s front lines — along with nurses, residents, respiratory therapists and other interprofessional team members — continuing to care for COVID-19 patients without interruption.

Amid concerns about caring for very sick patients, navigating rapidly changing clinical protocols and fearing they would catch the virus themselves, Kelly-Makol recalled another strong feeling from those early days of the pandemic: unity.

“As tight-knit as we were on the General Medicine units, the COVID teams have made us even closer,” said Kelly-Makol, who has been part of the PACE Service for eight years. “When we were starting to provide care on the Special Pathogens Unit, there was a lot of anxiety. We started this group text that became a stream-of-consciousness thread for our thoughts, concerns and occasionally humor. It kept us all smiling and feeling like we weren’t alone.”

Established in 2005, the PACE Service is one of four branches of the Brigham’s Hospitalist Service, which delivers inpatient care for the wide range of conditions that general medicine covers. This can include patients with anything from asthma exacerbations to heart failure, HIV, gastrointestinal bleeds, new cancer diagnoses, acute rheumatology disorders and more. While PACE’s role has evolved considerably due to the pandemic, its clinicians say their culture — defined by multidisciplinary collaboration, mutual respect and heartfelt connections — has remained the same since day one.

“The core value of PACE is that we are in this together. There’s an understanding that nobody can do this work by themselves,” said Matthew Vitale, MD, medical director of the PACE Service. “My favorite part of this job is watching the ways team members help each other grow and support one another in circumstances that can be very trying. These incredible clinicians care for each other, acknowledge their struggles and come together to do a phenomenal job every day.”

Marissa Cauley, PA-C, one of the service’s two chief PAs, said PACE strives to create an environment where all perspectives are heard.

“What makes PACE special is the interdisciplinary collegiality between physician assistants and attending physicians. We really work together as a team,” Cauley said. “When you feel respected and that your opinion matters, it makes coming to work that much more enjoyable. You’re valued, and that means a lot.”

Team-Based Care

Until PACE was formed, the Brigham’s Hospitalist Service was made up of teaching services consisting of attendings, residents and interns. In 2003, a nationwide regulatory change went into effect that limited resident work hours. While the new restrictions represented an important milestone in workplace safety and well-being for trainees, they also created staffing challenges at hospitals around the country, including the Brigham.

The Brigham sought to bridge this gap by tapping a historically overlooked pipeline of advanced practice providers — physician assistants. The PACE Service was born.

Jurkiewicz, Cauley and Peterson review care plans during rounds.

During a typical shift, each PACE team is staffed by two PAs and an attending hospitalist who round together, develop clinical plans and care for patients in collaboration with nurses, social workers, Care Coordination staff, physical therapists and other multidisciplinary colleagues. Overnight, the teams are covered by a member of the Hospital Medicine Nocturnist Service.

One point of pride for PAs is that PACE is not a triaged service, meaning that patients aren’t assigned to a PA team or resident team based on the complexity of their illness. Both teams are considered equally capable of delivering advanced, expert care in partnership with attending physicians on the General Medicine and Special Pathogens units.

“There is no patient too complex for our PA team,” said Leanne Wines, PA-C, co-chief PA of the PACE Service. “We’re really proud to be an essential part of the General Medicine Service.”

When PACE first launched, it consisted of one team of five PAs and three attendings, with a typical daily census of about 15 patients. Today, PACE now comprises three teams — known as PACE A, B and C — supported by a total of 17 PAs and up to 40 attendings, caring for up to 44 patients per day.

“We were one of the first academic medical centers in the country to adopt this model,” said Christopher Roy, MD, medical director of the Hospitalist Service, who led the PACE Service’s launch. “I’m so proud of how the service has grown.”

The service’s team-based approach to care is at the heart of its clinical operations, Vitale said.

“Attendings and PAs jointly make decisions about how to proceed in an area of ambiguity, such as a medically complicated patient at end of life whose family is making a choice between ICU or comfort measures,” Vitale said. “We put our heads together to come up with the best answer we can, based on the patient’s and family’s goals of care.”

Wines noted that the breadth of expertise and diverse backgrounds in PACE can be especially useful in caring for general medicine patients, whose medical needs are often varied and complex.

“The range of experience on the team is really impressive,” Wines said. “Marissa and I came from cardiac surgery, so we bring those cardiology skills. We also have PAs who came from neurosurgery, urogynecology, primary care and more. There are people on the team with 15 years of experience and some who just graduated last spring. All of this means we’re constantly learning from each other and tapping into different skill sets.”

Responding to the Surge — and Beyond

Since the arrival of COVID-19, the PACE Service has played a vital role in pandemic response. But when the spring 2020 surge set in, the teams quickly realized they needed more help. To manage the sharp increase in patient volume and complexity during the initial surge, about 40 PAs from other areas of the hospital were temporarily reassigned to the PA Special Pathogen Teams.

To help their colleagues acclimate to this new assignment, PACE PAs quickly created information packets, training manuals and in-person training shifts so that reassigned PAs would have the resources they needed to succeed.

“We were not only caring for COVID patients, but we were also training PAs from Surgery and OB/GYN on how to care for General Medicine patients,” Wines said. “It was a lot on our team during an already stressful time, but we were so grateful for the help because we absolutely needed it.”

Kelly-Makol said the extraordinary compassion, teamwork and dedication she’s witnessed over the past year has reminded her of what being part of PACE is all about.

“Once you’re in, you feel like family,” she said. “It’s a special group of people, and there’s never been a time when I felt unsupported. You truly know that, no matter what you’re facing in the day, you’ll have the support of your peers. We’re there for each other no matter what.”

“Behind the Scenes at the Brigham” is an occasional series in Brigham Bulletin that provides a glimpse of the people whose everyday contributions help make the Brigham a world-class institution. Is there a team you’d like to see featured? Send your ideas to bulletin@bwh.harvard.edu.

Angel Colon

The Brigham community mourns the loss of Angel Colon, who passed away on Dec. 22 following an illness. He was 56.

Mr. Colon had been a member of the Brigham family since 2003. He is remembered as a hardworking, kind and thoughtful colleague and friend.

He was beloved by those he worked with who will miss his positive spirit.

“Losing Angel is like losing a close friend,” said Labina Shrestha, operations manager in Environmental Services. “We miss him every day. He was a kind-hearted person who enjoyed helping others. Angel worked very diligently and always had a smile on his face. He will be in our hearts forever.”

A project technician in Environmental Services for more than 17 years, Mr. Colon was responsible for many tasks throughout the hospital, including groundskeeping, snow removal, floor maintenance and more. He was known by many people at the Brigham, including long-time colleague Vilma Vargas, a supervisor in the department.

“What it means to lose someone like Angel is very hard to describe in a few words,” Vargas said. “I can say that I’ve never met anyone else who was so humble and honest. Angel had a beautiful soul. We are going to miss him, and he’ll be in our memories forever.”

Rachel Hall, a manager in Environmental Services, was always struck by how seriously Mr. Colon took his responsibilities at work and how much he cared for those around him.

“He had the innate ability to sincerely be a kind and hardworking colleague to all,” Hall said. “He spoke to everyone he walked by while being dutiful at his job. He wasn’t a man of many words, but he was a man of high energy and a positive spirit.”

Mr. Colon is survived by his wife, Maria Pinto; his sons, Nathaniel Pinto and Luis Colon; his daughter, Norma J. Colon; five grandsons, three granddaughters and many other family members, friends and loved ones.

Coleen Dozier

The Brigham community mourns the loss of Coleen Dozier, BSN, RN, of the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU), who died on Jan. 10 of cancer. She was 46.

Mrs. Dozier is remembered by her PACU colleagues for her devotion to caring for others: her patients and their families, her colleagues and her own family, including husband Jarrett, stepson Sean and twin 4-year old sons Gavin and Owen.

“Coleen leaves a beautiful legacy,” said Heather Ankiewicz, RN, of the PACU. “Her ability to radiate love brought many together in countless ways throughout her journey.”

Mrs. Dozier, who earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from UMass Boston, joined the Brigham family 21 years ago, finding “a second home and her vocation when she arrived in the PACU,” said Jarrett. “As she relentlessly battled her own illness these last few years, those sister angel nurses of Coleen’s Crew and her whole BWH family fought along with her. They provided their own tremendous strength and care to Coleen and our family around the clock in her final days, on their own time with full hearts.”

The PACU team held a virtual celebration of Mrs. Dozier’s life on Jan. 19 to grieve, support each other and share precious memories.

“Coleen touched this PACU family in so many ways with her kind soul and quiet light,” said Varina Bednarz, BSN, RN, of the PACU.

Jarrett wrote of the joyful, warm home Coleen created for her family in Weymouth, “where the food, laughter and love is always abundant,” he said. “Her passion may have been caring for others, but her true calling was caring for her own. Our blessings increased when the greatest lights in her life arrived with the birth of her boys, Gavin and Owen. Her smile was always astonishingly radiant and genuine, but never so much as when she was smiling about all of her boys.”

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Dozier Boys’ Fund, c/o TD Bank, 754 Main St., Weymouth, MA 02190.

From left: Meg Nemitz (left), Winifred Caddeus, Ana Hoffman and Marinos Sotiropoulos reflect on their experiences receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

When Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) nurse Meg Nemitz, BSN, RN, learned she and her colleagues were eligible to join the hospital’s first group of employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, it felt like a gift. It contained something precious, something she hadn’t felt in months — a sense of control.

“Going down to Hale for the vaccine on that first day made me feel empowered,” she said. “It felt like there was finally some way to fight back. We no longer needed to feel so powerless.”

Since the Brigham’s COVID-19 Employee Vaccination Program launched on Dec. 17, more than 12,000 members of the Brigham community have received their first dose of the vaccine. Nemitz is among the 2,600-plus staff at the Brigham who have now obtained their second dose. Across the Mass General Brigham (MGB) system, more than 43,000 employees have received their first dose, and over 7,100 have gotten their second shot.

“I have confidence in the science — and the scientists — that this vaccine is safe and effective. The trials had such a high success rate,” Nemitz said. “And if people don’t get it, what’s the alternative? Are we just going to keep doing what we’re doing? How many more lives are we going to have to lose?”

When Winifred Caddeus, first cook in Food Services, became eligible to be vaccinated in December, he had no hesitations about getting the shot either.

“With that virus out there, I want to protect myself. The best thing to do is to just take the shot,” he said. “I still have to wear the mask, wash my hands and keep my distance, but it feels good to have that protection.”

Caddeus said he experienced some minor fatigue after receiving his first dose of the vaccine. He returned for his second dose on Jan. 7 and has had no additional side effects.

Such experiences with the vaccine are typical, according to a systemwide analysis of reported side effects from vaccinated employees across MGB. As of Jan. 13, slightly more than half of vaccinated employees reported no symptoms after their first or second dose of the vaccine.

Mild symptoms — such as mild fatigue, mild body aches or low-grade fever — were reported by 39 percent of vaccinated staff after their first dose. Of that group, only one in 10 saw their symptoms last for more than a day.

About 8 percent of vaccinated staff experienced symptoms they categorized as more severe or typical of a COVID-19 infection. While the vaccine cannot give someone COVID-19, testing is still mandatory for staff who experience these symptoms after vaccination to ensure they were not unknowingly infected before the vaccine gave them immunity.

Allergic reactions, which include mild pain at the injection site, followed a similar pattern. For those who received their first dose, 48 percent reported no allergic reactions and half of vaccinated staff said they only had mild discomfort where they received the vaccine in their arm. One percent reported a rash, and a fraction of a percent had moderate allergic reactions.

“I know a lot of people are scared to take it. I don’t know what they’ve heard, but I want to tell them it’s the best way to protect yourself,” Caddeus said. “Just give it a shot. If we get more people protected, it’s better for us — not only in the hospital but everywhere people go outside of work.”

Starting a Dialogue

Ana Hoffman, a Spanish-language medical interpreter in Interpreter Services, described getting her first dose on Dec. 17 as an “early birthday gift” that she was excited, honored and grateful to receive.

“The best way to stop this pandemic is if everyone gets vaccinated. I want to go back to a normal life,” said Hoffman, who received her second dose on Jan. 7. “We see so many people sick and dying from this virus. I see these patients every day, and the family meetings are so sad and difficult. Honestly, it’s awful and traumatic. The way we change things is if each one of us does our part by getting vaccinated.”

A passionate advocate for vaccination, Hoffman has spoken with colleagues, family, friends and members of her community about her experiences and reassured them that the vaccine is safe and effective. To help kickstart conversations, she began wearing a button that she made, bearing a simple message: “I’m vaccinated and I feel great! ASK ME.” Since then, she has created 100 more buttons and passed them out to vaccinated colleagues.

“I feel responsible to lead and encourage others to be vaccinated. There are people who are apprehensive,” Hoffman said. “My arm was a little sore where they injected the vaccine, and for the first one or two days, I had a headache, which might have been because I didn’t have any coffee that morning. But that’s it. I trust science and believe our infectious disease experts.”

‘The Beginning of the End’

Marinos Sotiropoulos, MD, a research fellow in the Translational Neuroimmunology Research Center, said he was eagerly watching his email for the announcement that his vaccine eligibility group, Wave C, was open for scheduling.

“We’re all looking for a way out of this, and it’s easy to lose hope, especially as this pandemic drags on and on. But this vaccine is the beginning of the end,” said Sotiropoulos, who works in a laboratory that processes clinical samples. “By having more and more people get this vaccine, we will achieve a level of herd immunity soon enough that this virus will not be able to spread.”

After getting his first dose on Jan. 6, Sotiropoulos said he experienced some mild side effects: soreness in his arm, fatigue and mild body aches. But rather than be concerned, he was encouraged by the reaction.

“It was my immune system showing me something was happening,” he said.

He also noted that it’s important for staff to engage colleagues, loved ones and community members in discussions about the importance of vaccination.

“As members of the health care workforce, everyone is watching what we do and say. Our friends and relatives in outside fields will be looking to us for guidance and advice,” he said. “By leading this wave of trust towards the science, the vaccine and its safety, hopefully we will inspire others to get vaccinated as well.”

The Skin of Color team, from left: Deborah Scott, Kristina Liu, Sotonye Imadojemu and Jennifer Lin

Inez Dover listened carefully while her longtime Brigham dermatologist, Jennifer Lin, MD, asked a series of questions over the phone about a hot, prickly rash that Dover had discovered on her body recently. One of her doctor’s first inquiries: What color was the lesion?

“Some of it was red and some of it was brown,” Dover recalled. “I was thinking, aren’t rashes supposed to be all red? Or pink? But Dr. Lin said, ‘Yes, that’s OK. It’s because of your complexion.’ She explained that, because I am a woman of color, a rash would look like that on my skin. And when she prescribed medication for it, she advised me not to use it for too long because it could lighten my skin.”

Dover, who is African American, remembers the interaction as a refreshing departure from other experiences she’s had as a person of color in the health care system.

“The disproportionate way people of color are treated and dehumanized in the health care system is a major concern for me,” she said. “As a Black woman, I have had negative experiences with physicians, and when I was choosing a dermatologist, it was critically important that I selected someone who understands women of color’s skin. It’s a change-maker.”

To help address the historic disparities, frustrations and indignities that patients of color like Dover have experienced in trying to obtain care for skin and hair disorders, a group of Brigham dermatologists came together in 2011 to create the Skin of Color Dermatology Program. Staffed by a team of four attending dermatologists, the program provides individualized, culturally sensitive care to patients of color.

“As doctors, we see everyone as equivalent. Everyone is someone I want to help. In some ways, we’re colorblind when we’re examining our patients, and yet in dermatology, we do have to pay attention to color, acknowledge and celebrate it,” said Lin, one of the program’s founding co-directors. “Being part of a program that creates the space to do that is a real privilege for me, especially as someone who has lived with having skin of color myself.”

‘Skin Is Skin, but Skin Is Not Skin’

The Skin of Color program has grown steadily over the year, now offering specialized services at two locations: 221 Longwood Ave. in Boston and 850 Boylston St. in Chestnut Hill. In addition to patient care, the program provides education and training opportunities for dermatology residents. And as its momentum continues to build, the team is beginning to explore research opportunities to help grow the number of studies focusing on skin of color.

“Skin is skin, but skin is not skin. There are differences in the way different skin tones respond to injury and certain skin diseases,” said Deborah Scott, MD, also a founding co-director of the program. “You might think, why do we need a dedicated program for this? In an ideal world, we wouldn’t. But it’s not an ideal world, and it’s important for us to not only be able to treat patients appropriately but also to ensure our trainees are prepared to care for all skin types after they complete their training and go out into the world.”

Dover, who began seeing Lin before the Skin of Color program formed, said she has been continually impressed with her dermatologist’s thoughtful, personalized and patient-centered approach.

“Dr. Lin is the best. She is very detailed and explicit in her explanations, and her bedside manner is impeccable,” said Dover, a retired educator, ordained minister and grandmother of three. “Whatever recommendations she makes for me, she’s always thinking about my background and what differences might be seen in my complexion.”

Acknowledging the Gaps

Chronic diseases such as discoid lupus and sarcoidosis, both of which cause skin inflammation, are more common in darker skin types, particularly among people of African descent. Meanwhile, many treatments for skin conditions, including lasers and certain ointments, can affect darker skin tones differently than lighter ones.

Some disorders can be more noticeable, and devastating, on people with darker skin — including conditions such as hyperpigmentation and vitiligo, which respectively cause an excess or loss of skin pigment.

“When patients have a skin disease, it’s often not their choice whether they disclose it or not. It is particularly true with vitiligo, which can be quite noticeable,” said Kristina Liu, MD, MHS, a dermatologist in the Skin of Color program and director of the Vitiligo Clinic. “There is a lot of misunderstanding about the disease, and vitiligo patients with skin of color experience much higher levels of stigma and distress.”

Scott and Lin co-founded the Skin of Color program with former colleague Vaneeta Sheth, MD, after seeing these conditions and needs addressed inadequately, or sometimes not at all, by existing systems of care.

“I’m African American, and when I first started practicing 30 years ago, I would see patients who said another dermatologist sent them to me because their dermatologist didn’t know how to treat their hair. I thought that was appalling,” said Scott, who also serves as director of the Laser & Skin Health Center and co-director of the Hair Loss Clinic. “I certainly knew how to treat patients whose hair didn’t look like mine. That’s what triggered my specialization in hair, actually. It wasn’t that I was particularly interested in the topic as much as I felt I needed to be a resource for patients who were being ignored or having their issues minimized.”

Reshaping Dermatology

While dermatology practice and education has evolved considerably since then, there is a continued need to address gaps and inequities through a program like Skin of Color.

“I am not someone who thinks that you can only care for patients who look like you. That’s not our goal at all. In fact, this is a clinic that should be obsolete. Every dermatologist has the ability to care for patients with darker skin,” said Lin, who also serves as co-director of the Melanoma Risk and Prevention Clinic. “But for now, there’s value in having a dedicated clinic where patients feel comfortable that the people taking care of them have had some extra training and a special interest in caring for skin of color.”

Part of the challenge lies in dermatology education, as geography and local demographics often determine the patient populations residents are exposed to during training. That is, residents who train in clinics that see mostly white patients often don’t get experience in how skin and hair disorders may appear in patients of color. Compounding the issue is the fact that photographs used in medical textbooks often depict lesions and disorders on white skin by default.

To help ensure trainees have more exposure to caring for patients of color, Skin of Color dermatologist Sotonye Imadojemu, MD, leads one of the program’s resident clinics to provide dedicated time for dermatology trainees to learn about caring for patients with skin of color.

“It’s been really well-received by the residents so far, and one important point to note is that it’s not an elective. It’s part of the general dermatology training experience, just like any other clinic,” Imadojemu said. “We deliberately did not want to make it seem like skin of color was a specialized niche.”

Imadojemu, who is dual board-certified in internal medicine and dermatology and is director of the Cutaneous Sarcoidosis and Granulomatous Diseases Clinic, said contributing to the field in this way and being part of the Skin of Color team has been a rewarding experience.

“I can’t even count how many times patients say, ‘I’m so happy to see you,’” she said. “It feels like my presence as a Black doctor is filling a need in the community. It’s not necessarily specific to being a Skin of Color dermatologist, but rather just being a doctor — helping people heal, making an impact on educating the next generation of dermatologists and reshaping the way we think about skin of color in dermatology.”

Left photo: Sarah and Benjamin Welch celebrate the birth of their daughter, Charlotte, on New Year’s Day; Right photo: Nurse Shayna Shaffer, RN, (far left) and obstetrician Carolyn Cline, MD, (far right) share a moment with the Welch family.

Baby Charlotte, weighing 8 pounds and 2 ounces, was one of the first babies born on New Year’s Day at the Brigham. Parents Sarah Welch, a senior physical therapist in Rehabilitation Services, and Benjamin Welch, welcomed their daughter into the world at 3:50 a.m.

Daniel Hashimoto (upper left speaker), MD, of Mass General Hospital, presents on surgical data science during a recent virtual research seminar hosted by the STRATUS Center.

When the COVID-19 pandemic halted in-person educational experiences earlier this year, the Neil and Elise Wallace STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation didn’t view the loss of on-site interaction as a roadblock. Instead, the center’s leadership team saw it as an opportunity to expand STRATUS’ reach across the globe — adapting its faculty development and instructor trainings for a virtual setting and broader audience.

“This whole thing has really been a testament to the strength of the STRATUS Center and its team,” said Charles Pozner, MD, FSSH, the center’s executive director. “We had no clear anticipation of what might happen, but we were able to pull through and bring STRATUS to the world.”

STRATUS now offers a variety of virtual instructor development trainings, as well as monthly research meetings for medical professionals, instructors and scientists around the world through video conferencing and online collaboration platforms.

Going Global with Online Offerings

The monthly Human Factors & Cognitive Engineering Lab series was introduced pre-pandemic as a way for investigators to discuss their ongoing research projects. Originally, these seminars were intended as monthly in-person research meetings attended by Harvard Medical School students and Brigham researchers.

Since transitioning to an online format at the beginning of March, however, the Human Factors & Cognitive Engineering Lab meetings have expanded to include a global network of research professionals sharing innovative discoveries.

A map showing the global reach of STRATUS’ monthly research seminars (click image to enlarge)

In just nine months, the research seminars have attracted more than 200 attendees from outside the Brigham, hailing from over 40 different countries, according to Roger Dias, MD, PhD, MBA, director of Research and Innovation at STRATUS.

The center has also been fortunate to have several international presenters at these seminars, lecturing on topics such as, “Formulating Qualitative Research Questions: When & How,” “Using Machine Learning to Assess Clinician Competence” and “Learning Analytics in Medical Education.”

Engaging Audiences

Moving to a virtual format has also helped usher the growth of instructor training, said Deborah Navedo, PhD, director of Education at STRATUS. Navedo believes instructor trainings have improved because virtual meetings are so accessible.

“While we have been creative in our hands-on training within the center to protect everyone’s safety around infection control, we are very excited to see that the move to video conferencing for training seminars has increased our visibility beyond our campus,” she said. “We now regularly attract global audiences to discuss best practices in facilitating simulation-based education, especially now that actual clinical settings have become more restrictive to learners.”

As the virtual offerings continue to expand, STRATUS leadership has worked to ensure that large, virtual meetings are just as engaging as in-person learning. Navedo said the team often focuses on making the meetings as interactive as possible by asking attendees questions, inviting them to submit their own and conducting role-playing activities.

“You can always tell if people are engaged based on the number of questions they ask,” Pozner said. “And, so far, it’s been very rewarding to see that a growing number of people feel STRATUS’ events add value to their lives.”

Given the two virtual programs’ continued success, STRATUS leaders expect to keep offering them even after the pandemic.

“It’s much easier to set aside time to log into Zoom than it is to hop on a plane and fly somewhere,” Pozner said. “Our position as a world leader in the virtual medical simulation space may have been spawned by COVID-19, but it will certainly outlast COVID-19.”

Did reading this year’s collection of One Shining Moment submissions in Brigham Bulletin inspire you to share your own? There’s still time to contribute! Simply use the comment box below to share a Brigham moment from the past year that you found touching, meaningful or made you feel proud to be part of the Brigham community.

Please note that comments on this page are moderated and will not immediately appear after clicking “Post Comment.” If you would like to submit a photo to accompany your submission, send it to bulletin@bwh.harvard.edu and a member of the Bulletin team will add it to your post.

From left: Trey Toombs and Rushdy Ahmad

With all the anxiety and uncertainty caused by the growing pandemic, I felt fortunate to have had the opportunity to support the diagnostics pillar of the MGB Center for COVID Innovation (MGBCCI) since its inception in late March. Working collaboratively with a large, diverse group of dedicated and talented people, both within the Harvard/MGB community and beyond, on solutions to this health crisis provided a much-needed sense of purpose and empowerment.

Responding to the critical need for the development and deployment of diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2, the MGBCCI crated a pipeline to identify and assess emerging technologies, clinically evaluate the most promising and funnel the best performing into implementation studies. The evaluations were conducted by researchers volunteering their time. However, as volunteers returned to work in their own labs, there was an urgent need to replace them. To lend a hand, a group of us who had worked on identifying and assessing technologies rolled up our sleeves and jumped into the lab. Not only was it a fantastic way to finally meet in person some of the people I had worked so closely with virtually, but it also was exciting to return to the lab after four years away from the bench.

Trey Toombs, PhD
Senior Program Manager, Brigham Research Institute

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The COVID-19 pandemic required all Brigham Health (BH) staff to develop new ways of communicating and working together across our common organizational boundaries. The BH COVID-19 Equity, Diversity and Community Health Response Team established in April engages staff across our system to assess and respond equity issues the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The group works to address the needs of patients, employees and our communities. Most recently, the meetings have focused on equitable vaccine distribution, virtual care access and the dramatic rise of food and housing insecurity.

It has been so inspirational to see the Equity Response team come together in the face of significant health inequities and racial injustices. The space created by this group has become extremely important in building understanding, relationships and mobilizing on action to advance equity.

At our twice monthly meeting, attendees hear important equity updates as well as participate in smaller group discussions. All staff are welcome to a space that feels safe, welcoming and honest. Participants consistently cite the importance of having their contributions valued and the power of connecting with staff across traditional boundaries. Group engagement is strong and racially diverse, with over 90 attendees at our last meeting. The team is led by Wanda McClain, Dr. Cheryl Clark, Michelle Keenan, Tracy Sylven and project manager RonAsia Rouse, and it is informed by a multidisciplinary and passionate group of “equity huddle” members. If you are interested in participating, please reach out to us!

Michelle Keenan
Senior Director, Health Equity and Social Innovation
Center for Community Health and Health Equity

RonAsia Rouse
Program Manager, Health Equity
Center for Community Health
and Health Equity

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On a recent night in the Emergency Department (ED), my Social Work colleagues Rebecca Moverman, Janna Levi and I were working to identify resources for a patient who had experienced domestic violence. She came to the ED with her young child, and we were determined to help them find a safe place to stay until the morning, when we could connect her with the Passageway program.

Between the three of us, we spent five hours trying to find an available shelter. Unfortunately, we could find not one to accommodate them.

After exhausting all other options, I spoke with the ED charge nurse, Cindy Nehiley. I cannot find the words to fully express how incredibly grateful I am that she was on shift that evening. She was extremely supportive, and I had no doubt that we were working together to find a safe place for this family to spend the night.

Cindy took the lead in speaking with the ED flow manager and nursing supervisor. She was able to get us all together on a call, where we spoke about what we had tried so far and the barriers we were unable to work through. With the nursing supervisor’s approval, the patient was able to stay the night in the ED with her child. And as one additional gesture of genuine kindness, Cindy assigned herself as the nurse to care for this patient and her little one.

This is what our work is all about. It is knowing that we are here to support our patients together as a team with compassion and empathy. It is not always easy, but, in the end, we do what is right for our patients and support each other every step of the way.

Andrea Johnson, MSW, LICSW
Director, Social Work

Home

I had many proud moments at the testing sites, but the food distribution and care kits that we provided directly in the community were very moving and proud moments for me — especially because I was able to involve one of my sons (Cam, age 13) in the work and show him the importance of giving back.

Tracy Mangini Sylven, CHHC, MCHES
Director, Community Health and Wellness
Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital

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My shining moment took place in late July, when I had the privilege of welcoming our first cohort of students to the Radiation Oncology Intensive Shadowing Experience (RISE) program! The brainchild of Radiation Oncology medical residents Drs. Damilola Oladeru and Ivy Franco, the RISE program was launched in the summer of 2020 to offer virtual shadowing and educational experiences in Radiation Oncology to talented, underrepresented minority medical students.

Many of these students might not otherwise have had the opportunity to experience the radiation oncology specialty, especially in the current COVID-19 environment. Each student was paired with one to two radiation oncologists to shadow virtually over five days. The students participated in learning sessions with established curricula in pathology, radiation dosimetry and e-contouring. They joined our attendings and residents virtually for tumor boards and patient visits, were mentored by our physics staff in radiation planning, watched a live MR-based radiation treatment and prepared a capstone presentation.

Every member of our RISE team was essential, including administrative staff, residents, attending physicians, dosimetrists, physicists and radiation therapists. What a joy it was to see this screen of smiling faces from the inaugural group of RISE students and their mentors!

Daphne Haas-Kogan, MD
Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology
Willem and Corrie Hees Family Professor of Radiation Oncology

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Photo credit: Susan Symonds/Mainframe Photographics

2020 was a year like no other. As the COVID pandemic spread and affected our community, our Facilities and Operation teams overcame the challenges with hard work, innovation and a safe care commitment to our patients, staff, visitors and each other. Many worked outside of their normally assigned duties, but whatever the task, they were there to help. As the course of treatments and safety protocols continued to develop, our staff were flexible and adapted to the changes. Each one of our teams — Central Transport, Engineering, Environmental Affairs, Environmental Services, Food Services, Materials Management, Police and Security, and Valet — gave it all every day. My shining moment has lasted for months and will continue until everyone is cared for and safe.

George Player, CPE, FMA
Vice President, Facilities and Operations

Home

My shining moment came as I oversaw a cardiac stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) treatment in our Radiation Oncology unit in early December. The novel treatment uses radiation to noninvasively treat an abnormality that causes the heart to beat too rapidly. Although we have performed several of these cases in our department, this one was special.

We have a system called AVATAR that allows patients to watch videos while receiving radiation therapy. The treatment takes one hour, so the distraction of watching a video can help some patients lie still and avoid the need for anesthesia. That day, we were caring for a patient with cardiac SBRT who was feeling especially anxious, and we were able to use the AVATAR system to play Paul Blart: Mall Cop to keep the patient calm.

The attention to detail of our team — including simulation, planning, treatment, clinical monitoring and ensuring that our patient and his parents felt comfortable and supported — was remarkable. The case had added meaning because it was the last case planned by one of our medical physicist colleagues, Dr. Fred Hacker, who passed away days before the patient’s treatment. I was full of appreciation and admiration for our entire team for their professionalism and skill in delivering Fred’s last plan perfectly for this patient, despite shouldering the grief of losing a team member.

Ray Mak, MD
Department of Radiation Oncology

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Our One Shining Moment this year occurred on Braunwald Tower 5B. During the first COVID surge, 5B opened as a Palliative Care COVID unit for those COVID patients at the end of life. One day, we were asked if we could arrange a room for two friends and roommates to share their last days together. The rooms on 5B are private, so, at first, we didn’t think it would be possible. But we were able to identify one room that had the capacity for two beds and started working on the conversion. In eight hours — with the help of Engineering, Biomed, Environmental Services, IS and many others — we were able to transfer these friends into the same room. The nurses enjoyed caring for them as much as they enjoyed being together. Unfortunately, one of the friends did pass away while they were here, but one was able to be discharged home. Caring for these two patients was a bright spot in an otherwise scary time. I am so proud of our Brigham family for pulling together and making the impossible possible.

Lauren Willard, MSN, RN, OCN
Nursing Director, Braunwald Tower 5AB and 12C
Oncology and Palliative Care

Home

Amid the immense suffering and loss during the pandemic, we have witnessed beautiful examples of compassion and human connection in every setting. I was especially moved by how nurses at the bedside comforted dying patients who were otherwise alone, without loved ones present during their final moments.

I am so thankful for the expert, compassionate care that nurses in every practice area have provided, whether that was at the bedside, in a clinic during a procedure or virtual appointment or on the other end of the phone line at our call center. The small gestures — holding a hand, sharing a kind word, following up to make sure someone was OK — made the biggest difference this year.

Maddy Pearson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Senior Vice President, Clinical Services, and Chief Nursing Officer

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Former Deland Fellow Sherry Yu, MD, and Kevin Giordano demonstrate a COVID-19 nasal swab using a prototype of a B-PROTECTED testing booth.

Like many, my shining moment came during the spring, when our community was facing the incredible challenges posed by the surge of COVID-19. Really, mine are a series of moments, but with one consistent theme: our Deland Administrative Fellows. These fellows, usually fresh out of graduate school and early in their career, spend a year at the hospital providing leadership and support to initiatives across our operations, with projects ranging from implementing clinical process innovations to developing business plans for new programs or services. But in the face of this pandemic, our fellows — Dr. Sherry Yu, Susannah Rudel and Zeyad Tuffaha — had a very different kind of year and were transformed. Sherry was on the evening news, talking about the innovative testing booth she helped design; Susannah was helping lead large teams to ramp up testing for our patients and employees; and Zeyad was like the mayor of the Pike, scaling a distribution structure to deliver salads to staff. Our Deland Fellows are always inspiring and one of my favorite parts of working at the Brigham. Like all of us, they had a very special year, and I am grateful to have been able to witness it.

Bernie Jones, EdM
Vice President, Public Policy
Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

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A daily snapshot of data the Analytics, Reporting and Insights team helped compile (click to enlarge)

As an organization, we are driven by data. Whether it be for our scientific research and breakthroughs, to the best treatments for our patients, to how we effectively and efficiently run our organization and make decisions about growth locally and abroad — data and facts inform these decisions, and I’ve always been grateful to work for an organization that operates in this manner. However, my One Shining Moment came this year as I saw our team of analytics resources within the Analytics, Reporting and Insights (ARI) team, which is part of the Analytics, Planning, Strategy and Implementation (APSI) department, come together and muster each of their unique and important talents of mining through troves of structured and unstructured data to provide meaningful insights to our Hospital Incident Commanders on a day-to-day basis as we navigated through this unprecedented and challenging surge of COVID-19 patients this spring.

As the leader of our analytics team, I observed them all quickly adapt to a new working environment (from home) and learn how to best engage with their colleagues and managers in this virtual environment. They were asked to dive into data we had not previously had experience with, such as the availability of ventilators and PPE. They quickly stood up dashboards and reports that would be refreshed — in some cases, in near real-time — to help our hospital administrators understand the influx of patients in our hospitals so they could make decisions about how many more ICUs we would need to plan for, what staff we needed to have available and the makeup of our patient population. Particularly important was understanding the shift in demographics as minorities were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and we also had a need for more interpreters for our inpatient population.

These insights proved to be the navigation system that helped our senior leaders make day-to-day and intra-day decisions about managing testing capacity; identifying staff by role who tested positive for COVID-19 and facilitating exposure tracing; and, when we were ready for it, supporting recovery efforts as we restarted elective procedures, brought in our patients in an equitable way based on acuity and reopened our ambulatory clinics while managing volume to allow for adequate physical distancing and use of telehealth visits.

The dedication of our analytics team over these past eight months has been nothing short of remarkable in terms of the impact each and every one of these silent and steady leaders made on the Brigham. Their contributions helped us navigate from surge to recovery successfully, and their efforts will stand out to me throughout my career as a bright, shining moment.

Rob Forsberg, MBA
Executive Director, Analytics, Reporting and Insights
Analytics, Planning, Strategy and Implementation

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Tengo 18 años trabajando para tan importante hospital como es el Mass General Brigham. He pasado por momentos difíciles, como las tormentas de nieve, donde a veces no podías llegar a la casa. Pero el más difícil es esta pandemia que nos ha tocado vivir, y a pesar de todo, seguimos fuertes y con una sonrisa de esperanza. Juntos somos fuertes. Feliz navidad. We are strong.

Rosis Bernabel
Unit Service Assistant, NICU

Home

I will never forget the way all our primary care leaders came together to stand up a respiratory clinic during the initial surge of COVID patients. This clinic would not have been possible without my dedicated primary care colleagues, several of whom are physician assistants (PAs), who worked tirelessly at the clinic to see patients and provide the best care possible during a very challenging and scary time.

Another shining moment from this past year for me was the amazing leadership and hard work shown by Cori Kostick, PA-C, and Alyson Bracken, PA-C, who were both instrumental in our community testing response. They were the clinical leads at our ambulatory testing sites, and their leadership made a difference in the lives of thousands of patients in our surrounding communities. Their contributions were truly inspirational.

Michele Elms, PA-C
Chief PA, Primary Care Center of Excellence
Communications Manager, PA Services

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Rounding in the ICUs last spring, I was inspired by the compassion and commitment of our colleagues caring for COVID patients. What stood out for me were the many ways they put our patients first, from arranging video calls with family members to the simple act of holding a patient’s hand. In addition to tending to their intense medical needs, they also honored each patient’s humanity. These individuals are the embodiment of our mission and values, and they make me extraordinarily proud to be a member of our Brigham family.

Betsy Nabel, MD
President

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The Operating Room (OR) facilitators are a team in the Operating Room who organize and maintain the OR desk. When the pandemic hit us hard in the spring, every one of them showed up to work every day, ready to help the team. With no questions asked, they were there to help others carry the load of the stressors everyone was facing. They are an integral part of the Operating Room who give 100 percent every day. The pride they take in their work is inspiring. They work together to strengthen the culture. I am continually impressed with their work ethic and results they produce.

Heather M. Couture, MSM
Operations Manager, Perioperative Procedure Services

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It is hard to choose only one moment in 2020. Brookside, in collaboration with Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center and with the support of other primary care staff, provided COVID testing, social determinants of health screening, food resources and voter registration from May 20 through Nov. 5. In addition to serving our patients inside Brookside, our staff worked tirelessly outside at the testing site. They served our patients and the whole community with compassion, kindness, dedication and a collaborative spirit every day, rain or shine.

I am so proud of our leadership team and the Brookside staff — a million shining moments, rolled into one.

Mimi (Margaret) Jolliffe
Executive Director, Brookside Community Health Center

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My shining moment came each morning during the first surge of COVID-19. Our Incident Command meetings were fairly somber, marked by increasing case counts and plans to ensure our supplies of personal protective equipment were sufficient in the face of challenged supply chains, among the many challenges we faced on a nearly constant basis. But each meeting also included a report on the incredible work we were doing in our local communities to provide testing, perform social determinants of health screenings, provide food and care kits and, eventually, register people to vote.

The numbers rose each day — this time, in a good way. We counted the number of people we were able to help, all of whom were from among Boston’s hardest-hit neighborhoods and were receiving those services in their very own communities. I couldn’t be prouder of the incredible, multidisciplinary team leading those efforts and to be part of the amazing Brigham community behind them. In the face of so many unknowns and new hurdles to clear, this daily example of how we — as a Brigham community — can make a difference in our neighbors’ lives as we work toward our vision of a healthier community and a healthier world.

Shelly Anderson, MPM
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Shalaine Parker is a member of the Police and Security team who often plays the piano in the 45 Francis St. lobby while on break from her duties. I was there on a recent morning getting a coffee at Starbucks. It was a cold, gray November day, and when Shalaine sat down at the piano, I was startled by her incredible talent! Her music was beautiful and very soothing. I thanked her for brightening this dark day. I hope Shalaine is recognized for being a bright star at the Brigham!

Anne Watts, BSN, RN
Assistant Nurse Director, Perioperative Services

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On a particularly dreary Monday in November, I arrived at the grand entrance of 15 Francis St., harried and a bit discombobulated. The door was closed, and as fate would have it, the scanner would not read my ID badge that day. Ugh. As I made another attempt to scan my employee ID, out of the corner of my eye I saw another person tap their badge. I turned around and was relieved to see a familiar, friendly face as the door was opened by none other than Dr. Betsy Nabel. She insisted that I enter before her. This not only made my day but has boosted my morale ever since. Thank you, Dr. Nabel, for putting words into action: We are all in this together!

Patrick Lally
Retail Services Manager, Shop on the Pike
Materials Management

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As we reflect on the past year, we can proudly say we’ve kept our word — delivering the highest-quality, accessible interpreting and translation services to our patients, their families and our workforce. In FY 2020, we set a new record by helping over 131,000 patients. Throughout the pandemic, we teamed up with our Brigham colleagues, providing crucial interpreting services in-person, virtually and through technological innovations; we translated hundreds of documents and communications to support COVID testing sites, the implementation of hospital policies for hand hygiene, social distancing, visitations as well as COVID-related research. We’re a unique group of professionals and always there when needed.

Yilu Ma, MS, MA, CMI
Director, Interpreter Services

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Throughout the almost two and a half months I spent as a nurse on Shapiro 9 West, our first COVID-19 ICU, I met an angel named Lisa Beal. Lisa was an ICU extender and a fellow empathetic soul who helped create one shining moment for our patient.

During a memorable shift, we facilitated an iPad call with his family and quietly wept together as we listened to them pour out their love to the man they called “Husband” and “Dad.” When it was clear he would not survive, Lisa agreed to enter his room with me and hold his hands. We never let go, and 45 minutes later, he passed beyond this world.

The empathy, respect and love that exuded from Lisa and our other COVID ICU nurses was a shining moment in an otherwise dark spring, and I am forever grateful to them.

Stephanie Grande, MSN, RN
ICU Nurse, Braunwald Tower 8CD
COVID ICU Nurse, Shapiro 9 West, March–June 2020

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I have worked as a postpartum nurse here at the Brigham for 33 years. I recently cared for a new mom and her sweet newborn daughter. As I always do, I asked her if she had a name for the baby. She told me the baby was named for her great-grandmother. She went on to say that, during her pregnancy, she had found a proclamation thanking her great-grandmother for her work as a nurse during the 1918 pandemic. She thought it was fate and had to be her daughter’s name. I agreed and shared with her that my own grandfather, on my father’s side, had died in the same influenza pandemic in Boston in 1918. My dad was 3 years old when his father died.

We talked about how, before this year, not many people had even heard about the 1918 pandemic or its tragedies and heroes. We talked about living through this present pandemic — as a pregnant, worried young mother and as an old nurse. I loved our talk and felt such a human connection to this patient that truly is the best part of my job as a nurse.

This year has challenged us all to dig deep to find some good, some meaning, some hope. I honestly find it every shift in my patients, in my co-workers, in each person I pass who is holding onto hope throughout these trying times. We both thought it was amazing that we, by fate, were randomly placed together to share our stories. We talked about the gifts of this year. This sweet little baby is one I’ll always remember.

Colleen Myers, BSN, RN, RNC-MNN, CCE
Nurse-in-Charge, CWN 8/9

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