The Bowdoin Orient

February 9, 2001
Volume CXXXII, Number 15

To the Bowdoin Community:

   Just when I thought I had recovered from the pain of being abruptly terminated from my position at Bowdoin College, I picked up last week's Orient to read that I had supervised a health care facility for 9 years that allowed registered nurses to work illegally, putting students at risk!
   In a letter to the Bowdoin community, Jeff Benson stated that, " The previous nurses could function as P. A.s (physician assistants) without actually having had a license, but this was legally and liability-wise risky for patients." This is a grossly inaccurate statement and is unfair to me, Joan Mitchell, Mary Ann Boulos-Lord and all the other nurses who have worked at the Dudley Coe in the last nine years. At no time during my tenure as director of student health services at Bowdoin was any nurse allowed to work outside of her scope of practice or in violation of her nursing license.
   When I assumed the position as nurse practitioner director in 1991, we had just been reorganized by the then new Edwards Administration. We were downsized from a staffing level very similar to the current configuration in place at the Dudley Coe. One of my first responsibilities was to develop written protocols for the registered nurses, which covered many aspects of student care. These protocols were reviewed and signed annually by the supervising physician. Before we initiated these protocols, the Maine State Board of Nursing, Bowdoin College's legal counsel, and our malpractice insurance carrier all agreed that the responsibilities given to the nurses were appropriate given their training and the plan of supervision already in place.
   Additional statements in Benson's letter and in the Orient article suggest that students were regularly inconvenienced by having to see multiple providers to get their needs met and that this generated many complaints. In the 14 years that I provided care to students as a nurse practitioner at Bowdoin, most students were comforted by the fact that we worked as a team to provide for them, creating a safety net that extended outside of the Health Center into the Brunswick medical community. The number one complaint expressed every year was that the Dudley Coe was not open at night and on weekends, as it had been in the past.
   As Ms. Sullivan suggested in last week's article, the timing of both my termination last spring and the terminations of Mrs. Mitchell and Ms. Boulos-Lord in December all happened as students were either occupied with finals or had left for summer break. Students would do well to examine the suggestion by Benson that the timing of my departure had " more to do with the college budgeting policies than anything else." Anyone who knows anything about the budgeting process at Bowdoin would find this statement absurd.
   Joan Mitchell, Mary Ann Boulos-Lord, and I never considered our work at the Health Center just a daily job to be completed. This professional, sincere commitment to the health and well being of all students allowed us to nourish caring relationships based on trust and mutual respect. Students understood that we were there to care for and guide them through whatever problems arose during their years at Bowdoin. It is the loss of this unique healing partnership that has led to the community dismay that Benson dismisses as an "…. unfortunate… emotional climate."
   I will never really know why Tim Foster felt he had to tell me last May that "we had to go our separate ways" nor will I ever stop worrying that my friendship with Joan and Mary Ann cost them their jobs. But I am certain that our loss from the Bowdoin community has nothing to do with legal, liability, budget, or quality of care issues.

Robin Beltramini