The Nursing profession offers a wide range of career specialties for those who feel called to serve. Whether working in an emergency room, operating room, doctor’s office, skilled nursing facility, or countless other places in between, the job of a nurse can offer ongoing opportunities over a lifetime of working.

One Felician nurse who knows this well is Kerry Peterson who was recently sworn in as the Mayor of Cedar Grove. Ms. Peterson has been an RN for 26 years. She graduated from Mountainside Hospital School of Nursing in 1994, then earned a BSN from Felician University graduating magna cum laude in 2015. For 22 years she worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson doing 12 and a half hour shifts, work she describes as both rewarding and grueling.

She switched gears five years ago and is currently a Care Coordinator for Atlantic Healthcare System doing “transitions of care” work with patients who have been discharged from the hospital. “My role is to ensure patient’s health and well-being and to avoid hospital visits and readmissions. I promote more health and education,” explained Nurse Peterson. That’s an important topic right now because of readmission rates and readmission penalties.

Mayor Peterson works from home and calls her Care Coordinator job a perfect fit for her because it gives her the flexibility and autonomy that makes it possible for her to serve as Cedar Grove’s Mayor.
She says both her work as a clinical nurse and government official are informed by values she learned at Felician University. “I love the Franciscan Values,” she says, “especially when dealing with patients and stressful situations. It’s like a centering, a matter of calming yourself, taking a breath, and not reacting and diffusing the situation and yes, the classes and education I received at Felician prepared me to handle those situations.”

Peterson was pressed into service in March when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and Atlantic Healthcare became one of the first places to do swabbing tests for the virus out of a tent in Morristown. Her department opened a hotline and started a surveillance program to keep a steady watch over discharged COVID-19 patients who would look forward to her calming calls to check on how they were doing throughout the day. “That’s the whole thing with this pandemic, everyone was just hit with it so fast. People were waiting for my call and they were so happy to hear from me because they knew I was there to ask, okay, what’s your oxygen reading today? How do you feel? How is your cough? Okay, let’s do this or let’s call the doctor.”

Now whether calming patients as a nurse or addressing the concerns of residents as Mayor, Kerry Peterson remains grateful for the top-notch nursing education she received at Felician. “It was a great program, I made great friends there, friends I am still in touch with today. I had a great experience at Felician.” Memories and experiences Kerry Peterson says continue to sustain her to this day.