An inpatient hospitalist nurse practitioner at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, Vermont, Megan O’Brien is a native Vermonter and three-time UVM graduate, most recently receiving her doctorate of nursing practice in 2017. 

Despite being board certified in family practice and acute care adult gerontology, the many hats I wear are about to be exponentially magnified in the current pandemic. I'm fortunate to be employed by a dynamic organization willing to take bold action and to come together to optimize our response weeks before we’ve seen our first patient, anticipating more than doubling our volumes and work flows. I’m proud to work with a team that values nurse practitioners and to have participated in Gifford’s comprehensive strategizing of resources, training and ethics. I will serve in many roles during this call to action as I provide complex care at the bedside, manage teams of staff who come to stand with us, as well as rely on my critical care nursing skills to support our nursing staff. 

Never has there been such a struggle to balance my professional duties against those of also being a wife, mother, daughter. My husband is a first-responder. We have an eight-year-old daughter and are preparing for possibly being isolated from her amidst everything else in her life being disrupted. I also worry for my own immuno-compromised and aging family members. 

The daunting reality of living and working in a small community is that our patients will be people we know — they will be our teachers, our mechanics, our own staff. We must remember how our actions have a ripple effect into the lives of others. In a time when every fiber in you is telling you to “run,” the most grounding thing for me to has been to realize there is nowhere to run. We are all in this. I’ve found strength hearing stories of sacrifices to flatten the curve, seen the generosity of people donating supplies and hand-sewn masks. 

What is the positive ripple we can put out there? Me? I’m going to take a deep breath, focus and dig deep to give the best damn care I can.