Student Spotlight: Madeline Weiman, MPH'24
As a critical care nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, Madeline Weiman was part of a high-consequence infectious disease (HCID) team trained to quickly mobilize and safely care for patients with highly contagious pathogens. In addition to infectious disease training, the team learned to quickly don and doff high-level PPE.
Though Mayo has the resources to keep adequate amounts of PPE and ventilators on hand, Weiman knew from watching news and social media that wasn’t every nurse’s experience.
“I was so thankful to have been on that team because when COVID hit, and our team was activated, we were able to get through the pandemic,” Weiman says.
That experience led to an interest in how health systems respond to pandemics and other outbreaks—with existing disparities, not all systems have the same level of HCID preparedness. Weiman says there is still work that needs to be done to ensure health system protocols are in place, and she sees herself sharing the protocols she learned at Mayo with care teams in other health systems to prepare them for the next infectious disease outbreak.
To do this, she realized she needed to advance her education to continue the spirit of the work of the HCID team and “that’s what led me to think about MPH programs.”
While considering a variety of programs, Weiman was impressed by Dartmouth and the warm response she received while interviewing.
“Speaking from a nurse’s perspective,” she says, “this makes people comfortable, and I felt faculty and staff truly care about their students. I was assured that I would have the flexibility to continue my humanitarian work and maintain full-time employment as a critical care nurse while going to school part-time, and this has been true.”
Inspired by Dan Lucey’s “amazing class” and his commitment to infectious disease humanitarian work, Weiman has since traveled to Lebanon twice, Honduras once, and the Amazon jungle on humanitarian missions during the program. All with faculty support, which, she says, is important to her.
“This personal experience is what makes Dartmouth special. I love what I do, and I’m thankful for the experiences I’ve had. When the next pandemic arrives, it will,” she notes, “we will be prepared.”
Written by: Susan Green
POSTED 3/27/2024 AT 02:58 PM IN #studentspotlight
GET IN TOUCH
To arrange a media interview, please contact:
geisel.communications
@dartmouth.edu