Emily Erhardt

BS, RN

While working as a staff nurse in and ICU at Massachusetts General Hospital, Emily was presented with the opportunity to become involved with the Enhanced Specialized Nurse Training Program (ESNTP) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Focusing mainly on the care of oncology patient, and specifically bone marrow transplant patients, Emily was apprehensive that she would be able to educate nurses on a topic she was not all too familiar with herself. However, she knew it was an opportunity that she could not pass up, and in 2014 traveled for the first time to Bangladesh as a Global Health Nurse Fellow for the ESNTP. Soon after her arrival, Emily was relieved to find that nursing as a whole, is a universal language. Not only she did feel confident in guiding these intelligent women and men in the care of an immunocompromised patient, but she found that they too, had many things to teach her, as well. The compassion and empathy the nurses had for their patients, with limited resources, lit a fire within Emily, and made her realize oncology was her true calling in nursing. When she returned home, she made the transition from a critical care nurse to an oncology nurse, and has not looked back since. She has her Bengali friends to thank for that. This is her third trip to Bangladesh, and she is excited to be back, and to share her knowledge in palliative care with the End of Life Nursing Education Consortium.