Felician University held an alumni virtual healthcare networking event Thursday May 28. The online presentation Healthcare During a Pandemic, “Who’s Helping You?” was sponsored by Felician University and the University Alumni Association. The virtual event brought together about thirty Felician Alumni, including nurses, and others working in the healthcare industry in the fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The online event had the collegial feel one might expect from any gathering of University Alums. Former Felician students happily greeted one another and their former professors in the virtual Zoom get together, but this alumni event had the added weight of the serious world reality that brought them together.

Dr. Christine Mihal, Dean of Felician’s School of Nursing gave the keynote address saying the current crisis has stretched nurses to the limit, “And as always we have stepped up and served, sometimes to our own determent.” Dr. Mihal, also spoke of the challenges nursing instructors now face due to the Pandemic’s social distancing requirements saying that while professors are doing their best to prepare students, “I don’t have to tell you, nursing is not a virtual profession, a catheterization on a manikin is nothing like catheterizing a human.”

Alums also heard from moderator Natasha Della Iacono, a Felician graduate now working as a Pfizer Research Scientist. Iacono says scientists are toiling around the clock to identify potential treatments and make them available to patients through clinical trials, adding, “science will always get us back to normal.”

The networking event was a chance for alums to share experiences only they can understand. William Onieal, a Nurse Manager at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway, NY spoke of the stress of so many CODE Blues,” you get numb to it,” and the pain of having to decide which patient out of seven will get the only available ICU bed, which he calls the, “golden ticket.”

Colleen Frankenfield is CEO of an organization providing senior services, hospice, home care, senior housing and support services. This Felician University Board of Trustees member fears, “we will see an impact on health care workers like we have never seen before,” predicting health care worker clinicians will be dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorders for years to come in the wake of the Pandemic.

The next Felician Networking event will be held Thursday, June 11 at 6pm when the theme will be mental health issues.

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About Felician University

Felician University engages over 2,300 undergraduate, graduate, and adult students through programs in Arts & Sciences, Business, Nursing, and Education. Universal Franciscan values of social justice, compassion, and respect for human dignity serve as an inclusive foundation for transforming the lives of tomorrow’s leaders. Felician University’s education is ranked 3rd best return on investment for private colleges in New Jersey 2018 by the PayScale.com College ROI Report and is ranked #1 safest college campus in the state by niche.com.