Alumni Profi le

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 2019, McKenna Boit ’15 became a registered nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit at Seattle Children’s Hospital. RN

McKenna Boit

’15

Has your job changed dramatically with COVID?

I did work as a nurse pre-COVID. Wearing masks and face shields has changed how we work for sure, as it dramatically affects how we communicate with patients and families physically and emotionally. When talking to a family member, your face is completely covered with PPE making it relatively diffi cult to communicate. Before, when we would walk into our rooms, our kiddos could see our faces and now they just see someone gowned up with a mask and face shield. I can’t imagine how unnerving that can be. PPE shortages have been affecting us just like the rest of the country. We have had to sanitize and reuse PPE. Wearing a mask for 12 hours a day is not very comfortable, but it is what we do now and what will be the norm for a long time.

What do you like best about nursing? What are your biggest challenges?

Working as a pediatric nurse, I am able to care for children and adults. I love working with kids and always have. They are so resilient and incredibly tough. When a child lands in the PICU, it can be one of the scariest times of their lives, for them and their families. I work for 12 hours to ensure that I am providing the best possible care for my patients and their families. Starting in an ICU as a new nurse was hard. My job continues to be challenging, but I cannot imagine doing anything else. The learning curve is steep and there is so much I do not know, but that is also what I love about my job: I am continually learning something new, literally every day. Some days I leave work and feel like it was a great day and other days, I come home defeated. The days where you feel like nothing went right, no matter what you did, are hard. It is the nature of the job and I do my best to learn from the day before and keep working day after day to do the best I can for my patients and families. I have also been a patient during the COVID pandemic, and the isolation is hard. Not being able to see your friends and family is particularly tough. I can only imagine how hard and scary it is for my patients to go through this. So, I do my best to ease some of their fear and anxiety while trying to provide the best medical care I can.

Do you keep in touch with EC classmates?

I do keep in touch with other students from EC and some of my best friends from high school are my closest friends to this day.

Any teachers at EC that inspired your career path?

I absolutely LOVED anatomy class. Mrs. McCorriston was such an amazing teacher, and she reinforced my interest in anatomy and physiology. I was in seventh-period anatomy class in the spring of my senior year when I had missed a call from Penn Nursing. That was when I found out I had been accepted! Most memorable anatomy class for sure.