Employment History:

Published Works:

Public Speaking Experience:

Why F is an Expert:
I haven’t been in anesthesia since 1997, so I wouldn’t say that is currently my expertise; long-term care is. Because of my career as an anesthetist and working in the operating room for 25 years, I have a lot of knowledge and really good assessment skills.

Best Advice:
Practice in a hospital setting for two or three years after you get out of school and get experience. Ask questions, don’t hesitate. I think young nurses are afraid to ask questions; they think they are supposed to know everything. Most of them go through school and end up with a degree, which is supposed to make them a better nurse. They have a lot of academics but then they often don’t have a lot of good clinical skills and assessment in terms of reacting to a situation.

Passionate about:
I am passionate about treating people with respect. A lot of younger people don’t have respect or desire to bond with older people; they don’t care about what they’ve been through and where their lives have been. There’s too much familiarity. People call

Biography Excerpt:
Evelyn Sheehy Richard is a night shift registered nurse supervisor at Havenwood-Heritage Heights, a nursing home that provides healthcare services, including long-term care, to the elderly. During the night shift, when there aren’t many doctors or nurses around, she is responsible for determining whether an ailing resident should go out to the hospital or be treated in-house. For example, if someone’s fallen, she assesses if they’ve broken anything, received a head injury or have wounds that need to be treated.

     

Cambridge Who's Who: What are your short-term and long-term career goals?  
EVELYN A. SHEEHY RICHARD RN:  My goals are to pass my knowledge and skills on to those younger than myself through lectures or speaking engagements at conferences. I used to speak at nurse anesthesia conferences when I was a nurse anesthetist, about how Diprivan and Pentothal could be used and the different techniques you could use to incorporate them (I conducted the trial to introduce Diprivan into Concord Hospital). Whenever you want to introduce a drug into a hospital you have to do a certain number of trials with patients. So, first I had to convince the surgeon to let me talk to the patients and then I had to get the patients’ permission. Then we did the trial cases –of course I started with outpatient cases. Diprivan was readily accepted because given properly, you can induce anesthesia with it and within 15 minutes of turning it off, the person is wide awake, can look at the clock and tell what time it is. With Pentothal, the fatter they were, the more anesthesia it took and then the longer it took them to wake up and get oriented. Pentothal is fat soluble, so it hung around people for a long time. The effects could linger as long as a week after the surgery.

What is the most significant issue facing your profession today?
The pay rate for this job has come up, so that is less of an issue. The problem is that we are producing nurses who have a lot of knowledge, but not a lot of skills. There is more emphasis on the academics and a lot less emphasis on the clinical skills; they don’t spend the time in the clinical area that we did. My young nurses don’t have very good assessment skills; they’re all worried about the paperwork. So they really need someone who is willing to teach them the clinical skills; and how to think things through.

Do you have a motto?
Every night before I go on the nursing floor, I go in the chapel and pray that the Lord will make me a useful instrument to make a difference in someone’s life that day.