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Catholic social teaching guides nursing and healthcare practice

FAIRFIELD—A nursing career involves much more than providing healthcare, it also calls for lifetime learning, healthcare advocacy and concern for the most vulnerable, said nursing leader Deborah Shelton, RN, PhD at the 16th commencement ceremony of St. Vincent’s College.

Shelton, an associate professor and dean at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing, said that her career as a practitioner, researcher and speaker has taken her all over the U.S. and involved her in the health of many communities.

“I thought I’d just be a nurse,” said Shelton a 1974 graduate of St. Vincent’s’ School of Nursing, but I was hooked on the mission.  You will be too.” Shelton is best known for her study of the healthcare needs of youthful offenders who have been incarcerated.

The college presented 72 associate of science degrees, 15 in radiography and 57 in nursing during the ceremony in which family and friends packed the Quick Center of Fairfield University to cheer on the graduates.  The Most Rev. William E. Lori, Bishop of Bridgeport, delivered the invocation. “Jesus was the physician of the soul,” Bishop Lori said as he congratulated graduates. “He went about healing the sick and comforting the down trodden. Your work is a continuity of that mission.”  

Dr. Shelton who has worked with Native Americans in Alaska and advocated for healthcare in Washington D. C., told the graduates that the principles of catholic social teaching have guided her work as a nurse researcher and practitioner.

She said “the sanctity of life, the preferential option for the poor, the dignity and right to work, and good stewardship of the creation” are values that unite the generations of nursing graduates from St. Vincent’s.

“Take it from me, you have been taught for a lifetime,” Dr. Shelton said, referring to the core values of the College and the Catholic healthcare tradition.

Julie Young, a nursing major from Stratford who gave the class speech, thanked her classmates for supporting one another and said that all were united in their search for a “healing” profession.

“The journey begins. We are living in uncertain times but as medical professionals we have the tools to make a difference,” said Young who has worked as an office manager in a local Ob/Gyn practice. She will soon begin working at the Hospital of St. Raphael in New Haven.

“Nursing is a calling we could not walk away from. We bring confidence, hope and strength to our work,” she said.

Cheryl C. Mingione of Milford, a nursing major, was named Valedictorian and presented with the Medical Staff Award. Hamden resident Peter Boadi became the first Radiography graduate to be named a class Salutatorian. Boadi also earned the Anelia Kerbelis Memorial Award, the Pasquariello Memorial Award and the Connecticut General Assembling Citation of Merit.

John Cybart of Shelton, a radiography major,  received the All Connecticut Academic Team Award along with Sister Anne Theresa Nguyen, a nursing major who also won the Pasquariello Memorial Award for caring.  

 Before the close of the ceremony, Susan Davis, President/CEO of St. Vincent’s Medical Center, College, presented a special tribute to Dr. John K. Fisher, who will be stepping down as President of St. Vincent’s College in June.

Dr. Fisher, a noted Connecticut educator, was presented with a Hitchcock Chair by the College’s Board of Trustees in gratitude for his many achievements including the growth in enrollment, opening of the new Main Street campus, development of academic programs and his work with the alumni.