Page 15 - Healthcare Heroes 2025

HealthcareHEROES
A P R O G R A M O F B U S I N E S S W E S T & H E A L T H C A R E N E W S
Healthcare Educator
She’s Raising
Up a Young
Generation of
Nurses with
Empathy,
Conviction
By Joseph Bednar
bednar@businesswest.com
Andrea Bertheaud’s early career in nursing found
her in challenging settings — a year on an oncology
unit followed by 15 more in critical care, which she
thoroughly enjoyed.
After retreating from the field for a dozen years
to raise her kids, she went back to work in a nursing home in
1999, then decided to go back to school for her bachelor’s and
master’s degrees. And that’s when she found her true calling.
“One of my classmates was a psych
nurse, and I did a project with her at Roca.
She was so inspirational. I saw her work
with this clientele; there were maybe 15
young men between the ages of 18 and
26, and I saw how she brought them in
and controlled the room. And I said, ‘that’s
the skill I want.’”
Andrea
Bertheaud
Clinical Assistant Professor,
Elms College
“One of my classmates was a psych nurse, and I did a
project with her at Roca,” Bertheaud recalled, referring to
the successful violence-prevention program. “She was so
inspirational. I saw her work with this clientele; there were
maybe 15 young men between the ages of 18 and 26, and I saw
how she brought them in and controlled the room. And I said,
‘that’s the skill I want.’”
So she became certified in mental health and eventually
worked in that field at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital
and Baystate Health. And those experiences sparked in her a
desire to teach others.
“It was mainly psychiatric patients, a lot of co-morbidities
with substance use. And patients were frequently recurring, so
I got to know them over and over through a lot of admissions.
And I felt like we weren’t supporting them enough in the
community,” Bertheaud said. “I also found there was a lot of
stigma toward mental health, which I have to admit I had. And
I found it was a different skill set. In the ICU, in an open heart
or trauma, that’s a skill. But being a mental health nurse is a
different skill set. And it kind of called to me.”
Today, Bertheaud teaches mental health and population
health to aspiring nurses in the Elms College School of Nursing,
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