Skip to contents
In This Issue:
Steven and Kathleen Haley, left; at right, Kate Gregory
For Kate Gregory, PhD, RN, nursing research is critical to improving patient care.
“There are so many unanswered questions about what we do in our nursing practice, why we do it and how to best take care of our patients,” said Gregory, a full-time professor of nursing at Boston College William F. Connell School of Nursing. “One of the best ways to answer these questions is through research.”
Last fall, Gregory was named the first Haley Nurse Scientist at BWH as part of the newly established Steven and Kathleen Haley Nurse Scientist Program. The Haleys made the program possible with their generous gift of $1 million to the Department of Nursing—the largest single gift the department has ever received.
“This program will allow us to push the envelope to generate new knowledge and applications for clinical nurses and nurse scientists locally and nationally,” said Mairead Hickey, PhD, RN, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of Patient Care Services.
Kate Gregory was named the inaugural Haley Nurse Scientist. Photo by Lee Pellegrini/Boston College.
Through the Haley Nurse Scientist Program, nursing scholars who are doctorally prepared faculty and scientists at the Boston College William F. Connell School of Nursing receive an appointment in the BWH Department of Nursing to engage in their own clinical nursing research and to support BWH clinical nurses in scholarly activities.
This program allows nurses to advance the care of patients and families by promoting nursing scholarship, advancing the development of nursing science and creating opportunities for the mentoring of BWH clinical nurses.
Gregory, whose own research examines the physiologic factors and clinical interventions on the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis in pre-term infants, recently received funding from the Harvard Catalyst Grant for research with Allan Walker, MD, of MGH, and Linda Van Marter, MD, of BWH and Children’s Hospital Boston.
Gregory has worked as a nurse-scientist in women’s health at BWH for the past two years and will conduct her own research and work with BWH nurses interested in conducting research studies and developing evidence-based nursing practice.
“We need more nurses to be involved in research; it is part of our professional responsibility to contribute to better patient care,” said Gregory. “And, more importantly, nurses often have the best insights on where we should focus our research efforts to answer the most important questions about patient care.”