Many of our UTMRC members are very talented and gifted with hearts that give to others. They inspire and lead with skill and competence.
Such is our feature for this quarterly: Christine McIver, RN, BSN. A member of UTMRC since 2017, she has augmented her work as a critical care nurse with public health service and disaster preparedness and response. She was instrumental in mobilizing a myriad of volunteers (UTMRC among them) to vaccinate thousands of people at Circuit of the Americas and Travis County Exposition Center as Operation Section Chief within an Incident Command System. She was responsible for Just-in-Time training for volunteers and strike teams sent to provide vaccinations at mobile medical clinics and other sites, often supporting community events such as SXSW, ACL and Austin FC soccer.
In February 2020, Christine was deployed by Ascension to help care for the first American citizens of the Princess Cruise Line infected by COVID-19. Since then, she has been asked by Ascension Seton and Emergency Medical Task Force Region 7 to lead its Infectious Disease Response Unit in appropriate PPE practices, COVID-19 education and screening of associates and updating its policy on infection control. She is trained in determining the use of N95 vs respirators for staff use and Point-of-Care Testing risks and benefits.
For her work, she was recognized as Ascension Seton Nurse of the Year, 2020 and 2021 and UTMRC Top Tier Volunteer for 2021.
Although pandemic preparedness and response is public health, Christine is a critical care nurse caring for very complex medical-surgical cardiac patients at heart. She is training to become a critical care flight nurse so she can do more challenging work, like work outside the hospital setting. She plans to go to Nigeria in May with surgeons and other medical practitioners anticipating she might have to bring out her inner American Red Cross nurse skills as well. She eventually wants to work with the National Disaster Medical System Disaster Medical Action Team or for Samaritan Purse.
Christine says she learned about the importance of disaster preparedness from her student days at the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. Since then, in addition to her busy nursing practice and volunteer work, she has continued to be active with UTMRC, recently participating in a table top exercise on a hypothetical mass sheltering event.
