Buckeye Inspiration: John Welch
by Susan Neale
John Welch (’03, ’19 DNP) believes in nurses’ power to calm and connect with their patients.
“You know that element, right?” he asks. “That nursing element of therapeutic communication, trust and empathy?” Empathy is as important to a nurse anesthetist as scientific knowledge, he says. “That will be the foundation, what we want our students to finish with: that deep empathy, while also having new advanced technical skills.”
Welch, who was awarded the 2016 William Oxley Thompson Award for his early career achievements by The Ohio State University Alumni Association, has put this nursing empathy to use in some very challenging environments.
“I love the complexity of diverse teams trying to settle on a shared goal and mission and then marching toward that.”
Shortly after earning a master’s in nurse anesthesia in 2012 at Boston College, Welch became a pediatric nurse anesthetist at Boston Children’s Hospital. Within his first year, an opportunity arose to work for Partners In Health (PIH), a healthcare and social-justice organization. PIH sent him to a new teaching hospital in Haiti created in the aftermath of the major 2010 earthquake. There, he helped set up and run a nurse anesthesia program to increase Haiti’s supply of nurse anesthetists. Next, Welch went to West Africa, working in Liberia and Sierra Leone as clinical director for PIH’s Ebola response. He directed 20 Ebola treatment units, helped move Ebola care out of the hospitals so that hospitals could reopen and provide essential services to others, and helped start clinics for Ebola survivors.
After that, Welch said, it was the perfect time to work on his DNP at Ohio State. He had returned to Boston and joined Ohio State College of Nursing’s alumni society board. “That’s where I met Bern [Melnyk]. She strongly encouraged me to work on my DNP.” That DNP work catalyzed him to help create a pediatric nurse anesthesia fellowship at Boston Children’s, only the second pediatric-specific anesthesia program in the country.
“I love to build things,” Welch says. “I love the complexity of diverse teams trying to settle on a shared goal and mission and then marching toward that. Whatever I’ve been doing in my career, it’s always been building something, a program or a system.” Now he’s part of a team building something new at Ohio State: a Nurse Anesthesia track for our DNP program. While continuing to practice in Boston and consulting with PIH on global health equity situations, Welch will be the program’s director. The Ohio State University College of Nursing has applied for accreditation by the Council of Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs. The program aims for its first cohort in fall of 2024. Until then he will be busy building out new courses specific to anesthesia, finding clinical affiliations for students’ clinical experience and making sure the program meets accreditation standards.
He is grateful that the team developing the Nurse Anesthesia track – including Cindy Anderson, PhD, APRN-CNP, ANEF, FAHA, FNAP, FAAN, Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, Kristy Browning, PhD, APRN-CNP, FAANP, and Randee Masciola, DNP, APRN-CNP, WHNP-BC, FAANP – supports his desire to stay clinically connected. “I love at the College of Nursing how important it is that we stay as close to patient care as possible,” he says.
Besides program building and clinical practice, Welch also finds joy in teaching – and in seeing its results. In the summer of 2021, another powerful earthquake rocked Haiti and Welch returned to help. Some of his former students from the teaching hospital in Haiti also responded to the disaster. “It was just a remarkable experience to see former students now teaching other students, being highly, highly skilled nurse anesthetists and responding to an emergency.”
He’s also excited about the potential for the new nurse anesthetist DNP track to improve healthcare in remote areas. “Our expertise at online instruction is so important to recruit from diverse places around the country, and especially around the state. Think about recruiting students from southern Ohio who can go back and work there after they finish: that’s really important,” he says. “It’s about creating solidarity with rural communities and building relationships that will serve those communities.”
Learn more about Welch’s work with Ebola patients: go.osu.edu/welch_ebola
