NEWS & EVENTS
BSN nursing student Lauren Flaherty wins top awards
A junior in the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program, Lauren Flaherty worked with her mentor and advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Damato, on investigating the “Relationships Among Sleep Duration, Sleep Quality, Fatigue, and Depression in Fathers of Twins.” At last month’s 2009 Midwest Nursing Research Society Conference, held in Minneapolis, Flaherty’s research won First Place in the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition and, even more notably, a Citation Award for overall best abstract at the conference. Her abstract beat out not only those from her undergraduate peers, but also those submitted by both graduate students and faculty.
“My favorite nursing course so far has been pediatrics critical care,” Flaherty says. “It really demands quick, on-your-feet thinking, and it worked as a kind of bridge to my research study, where I had the opportunity to talk to parents and teach them about proper child care.”
Dr. Damato provided Flaherty with some of the data sets from her own research study on parents of twins. Flaherty followed up by meeting with fathers of twins to interview them about their sleeping habits and feelings of depression. In return, she offered tips on raising their newborns. She found that they were very receptive to her suggestions, despite the fact that Flaherty is not a parent herself.
“Most of them are happy to get such nursing advice, especially when twins are involved,” she says. “Both parents are particularly under a lot of stress.”
Flaherty came to FPB from Tyngsboro, Massachusetts. After she receives her BSN this December, she is considering returning to FPB as a graduate student in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.