Page 38 - Healthcare News Sept.-Oct. 2020

HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Jennifer
Graham
Home Health Aide, O’Connell Care
at Home
This College Student
Stepped Up and Passed
an Important Test By George O’Brien
Jennifer Graham enrolled in the pre-medical sci- ences program — with a minor in psychology — at Bay Path University with the long-range goal of becoming a doctor.
But the events of the past seven months have changed her outlook — and her career pursuit — in a very meaningful way.
“I now want to go into nursing school,” she told HCN. “Dealing with COVID as a whole and seeing what we’re going through as a country, I just want to pursue nursing and help people more. Doctors don’t get that one-on- one all the time, that patient contact, as much as a
“After working with COVID and seeing what people really go through with sickness and even death, I want to be there — I want
to be there to support these patients, help them out, and make them feel better as an ” individual with what they’re going through.
nurse does. After working with COVID and seeing what people really go through with sickness and even death, I want to be there — I want to be there to support these patients, help them out, and make them feel better as an individual with what they’re going through.”
What prompted this change? Some time on the front lines of the pandemic as a home health aide working for O’Connell Care at Home, a part-time job that became far more than that when she returned from a cruise — yes, a cruise — during spring break in mid-March.
Upon coming back to Western Mass. from that voyage
Dani Fine Photography
A26 OCTOBER 2020
2020 HEALTHCARE HEROES