Department of Nursing Receives Major Gift
$1 Million Gift to Fund Haley Nurse-Scientist Program
Steven and Kathleen Haley, creators of the Brain Science Foundation, made a gift of $1 million to the Department of Nursing to fund the Haley Nurse-Scientist Program
The Department of Nursing received its largest single gift ever this spring and, with it, a promise to further the research and scholarship of BWH nurses and advance the practice of nursing at BWH.
Steven and Kathleen Haley, creators of the Brain Science Foundation, made a gift of $1 million to the Department of Nursing to fund the Steven and Kathleen Haley Nurse-Scientist Program which will bring nursing scholars to BWH to conduct research with Brigham and Women’s nurses.
“This is an incredible act of generosity made possible by the excellent work of BWH nurses and the confidence the Haleys have in the Nursing Department,” said Mairead Hickey, PhD, RN, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of Patient Care Services. The gift from the Haleys marks the first-ever $1 million gift to Nursing.
The inspiration for the gift comes from the Haleys’ realization that nurses are at the side of patients most. Kathy Haley, a Boston College graduate, met with nursing leaders at BWH and administrators at the Boston College William F. Connell School of Nursing to forward her idea of the Haley Nurse-Scientist Program. These nurse-scientists are doctorally-prepared and work on specific areas of research that require the involvement of both the clinical and academic worlds.
“Our program is complementary and links two great institutions—BWH and Boston College,” said Kathy Haley. “These research concerns can result in new best practices in clinical care.”
Through the Haley Nurse-Scientist Program, which will come together for the 2010 academic year, three or four Boston College nurse scientists would come to BWH over the course of the next five years to conduct their own research and to work with BWH nurses interested in conducting research studies and developing evidence-based nursing practice. For the past two years, Kate Gregory, PhD, RN, a nurse-scientist from Boston College, has been doing exactly this with nurses in Women’s and Newborns’ Health. She has successfully helped several nurses develop their own studies, including a study of tub bathing versus sponge bathing in maintaining temperature control in late, pre-term infants and measuring the impact of a nurse led antenatal class on maternal stress.
“The Haley Nurse-Scientist Program will allow us to push the envelope to generate new knowledge and applications for clinical nurses and nurse scientists locally and nationally,” Hickey said. Through this program, nurse scientists will partner with clinical nurses to facilitate the entire research process from forming the research question to presenting the findings.
“This will help the Department of Nursing ensure our nursing practice is always state-of-the-art and evidence based,” she said.