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2024 Champions of Health Care
Champions of Health Care: Bolandrina creates partnerships to enhance community health
Photo | Courtesy of Bay Path Practical Nursing Academy
Gretheline Bolandrina, academy director at Bay Path Practical Nursing Academy in Charlton
By Laura Finaldi
Bolandrina creates partnerships to enhance community health comes from a family of educators. Her mother is a teacher, and five of her aunts also taught. But Bolandrina, the academy director at Bay Path Regional Practical Nursing Academy in Charlton, fell into teaching almost completely by accident.
She was working a daytime shift as a nurse – an extra few hours on top of her regular night schedule to pay for a necklace she wanted. One day while on the clock, she noticed a group of MassBay Community College nursing students standing around, looking confused. They were waiting while their instructor was with another student.
“I said, ‘I’m going to do a procedure on a patient. Do you want to come watch?’ So they did. The following day, they were all waiting for me,” she said. “The instructor said, ‘We’re looking for another instructor, and you’re good with students.’”
Bolandrina’s path progressed from there. First she taught clinicals, until she realized the students were passing their labs without mastering industry-standard competencies. Then she was pulled into teaching lab. She ended up teaching at MassBay for eight years before joining Bay Path in 2013. She’s been the director there since 2015.
Bay Path students who finish their accelerated 10-month program are eligible to sit for their licensed practical nurse exam. LPNs can work in long-term care, schools, doctors offices, wound care clinics, and as independent practitioners.
Students in the program are all Mental Health First Aid certified, something Bolandrina arranged after seeing an article in a newspaper about a grant the Webster Police Department received for training.
“I contacted them and asked, ‘Do you have extra seats?’ The Webster police opening led me to meet with someone who organized Mental Health First Aid training, which evolved into getting 15 students certified, and then Shrewsbury Youth & Family Services came to our school and certified the entire class,” she said.
That collaboration has grown to have an entire cohort of students certified in MHFA annually and is one of several collaborations Bolandrina has arranged through Bay Path. The international nonprofit UNICEF USA works with the UNICEF Club at Bay Path to educate, advocate, and fundraise for UNICEF. The Medical Reserve Corps of Massachusetts work collaboratively with disaster drills.
Students, faculty, staff, and alumni participate in career fairs and expos, such as the Worcester Nursing Pipeline Consortium and MassHire Career Fair, to entice people into the industry.
Self-described as naturally inquisitive, Bolandrina said if she reads something interesting and relevant to her job in the newspaper, she’ll often reach out to that person to see if they can partner.
This, said Lori Douthwright, director of evening school at Bay Path, is part of what makes Bolandrina so special.
“You name it, she does it,” Douthwright said. “I don’t think this woman ever takes a rest. I could never keep up with her. She’s an amazing woman who gets involved with so many things. She encourages her students to get involved in things, to do them because it’s something they believe in.”
Bolandrina is fair, kind, and consistent with her decisions, Douthwright said. If an issue arises, it’s easy to know where she’ll stand because she’s by the book.
“I know it’s cliche, but she goes above and beyond,” Douthwright said.
Community service is a value Bolandrina said she hopes her students take away from their time at Bay Path. Every last Wednesday of the month, student nurse volunteers do blood pressure screenings at the Charlton Senior Center. Students partner with UMass Memorial Health - Harrington Hospital and nonprofits like the JAK-L Foundation for mental health awareness.
For Bolandrina, the best part of teaching is the “a-ha moment,” the moment something finally clicks for a student.
“You teach one nurse, and they teach families and patients. It’s the best of both worlds,” she said.
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