Humor and compassion have been career hallmarks of Maisonneuve, a graduate student in the School of Nursing's pediatric nurse practitioner program and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. When the situation calls for it, she is not afraid to use seemingly unorthodox methods, as in the case of the 2-year-old boy, who had leukemia and would not get out of bed or eat.
"I just took off his baseball cap, which seemed really mean at the time, but he chased me around the ward to get it," Maisonneuve said. "The next day, he gave me his hat, took my hand, and we took our walk. I knew him for three years. He said things like, `I know I'm not going to live. I want a lot of balloons. I want a big party.' He even married his pediatrician. Here she is in the Navy and she's wearing this little plastic ring. But that was what that kid needed to do."
"You can even use humor when a child is dying or very sick," she said. "One thing that I've found will help calm a parent down is, when a little baby comes in with a high fever I'll say, `I can't believe you're giving your mother gray hair so young in life. Just wait 'til you're a teenager.' And you can just see the relief wash over the parent's face. They're probably thinking something like, `Yeah. You're only a couple of days old. When you get to be a teenager, we're going to relive all of this.'"
There are times, however, when Maisonneuve knows that humor is completely inappropriate and what's called for is her strength and compassion.
"I think I have a real talent in dealing with parents who have just lost a child," she said. "As a young student, I had to take a newborn who was born with half a heart into the mother, because the doctor didn't know what to do. There wasn't any magical thing to do. I just held her like a baby, handed her to the mother, and told her to tell her daughter that she loved her or anything else she wanted the baby to hear. I was crying. I didn't say anything else after that. I just took the baby back and carried her down the hall."
What happened next sparked Maisonneuve's interest in pediatrics. "Somebody said to me, `That baby's dead. Why are you carrying it like that?' It was a life. The mother had just lost that life, and I was going to honor her as a baby."
In addition to providing emotional support to parents, Maisonneuve stresses the importance of alleviating the fears and apprehensions that children have about getting medical treatment, which has continued to be a top priority for her since she began her 18-month degree program last August. When one of her classes was assigned a creative nursing project to do last semester, Maisonneuve approached Professor of Nursing Marcene Powell about the possibility of coordinating an event called "It's Cool to Grow" at nearby Fernbank Elementary School, one of three public schools in Emory's Partnership Program. Powell agreed.
The program had graduate and undergraduate nursing students teamed in pairs to measure the height, weight, blood pressure and foot size of approximately 700 Fernbank students. "The kids really liked it," Maisonneuve said. "A lot of the kids asked what nurses do or said that they wanted to be doctors. It put them in an environment where they weren't afraid of getting a physical. Because they were in their own school gym, they didn't mind having their blood pressure taken or their height and weight measured, which is really simple, but it was less stressful because they were in a comfortable environment."
"I was very honored," said Maisonneuve, who has served at military hospitals in the Philippines and at a field operation in Cuba. "Normally, that award is given to you when you retire or to captains and commanders."
While she deeply appreciates being honored for her administrative and leadership skills, Maisonneuve never wants to stray too far from the children who make her work so enjoyable and rewarding. She will complete her degree in December and serve seven more years with the Navy before retiring. "I know that after the Navy, I want to join a practice and be involved in the community and try to make health care services available to children," said Maisonneuve, who has a 7-year-old daughter of her own, Jacqulyn Marie. "I want to be out there affecting children and their health care and making sure that everyone is getting equal health care, not just those who can afford it or those covered by insurance."
--Dan Treadaway