New Parish Nurse Works to Build Little Communities

By Mary Donovan

Michelle Parsons is our new parish nurse. Michelle is from Westboro where she helped found the parish nurse program at St. Luke's parish and subsequently spent six years working at the job. Michelle's experience was in hospice and as an oncology nurse . She said she felt that her skills in nursing and ministry could be put to good use in the parish nurse format.

She was right. Since its beginning in the Worcester area in 1998, parish nursing has become an important part of many parishes.

Michelle will continue the programs with which the parish has become familiar and hopes to develop new programs as the needs make themselves evident. She'd like to offer a program on addressing stress at holiday time, she said. She'd like to entertain a new mothers' group. She said she feels that bereavement ministries are very important. She hopes to offer two six-week programs a year

Building little communities within the larger community is one of her specific goals, she said.

If you can do that, people connect with and support one another," she said. "People can get lost in the bigger community."

Michelle said her favorite part of the job is the one-on-one time she spends with parishioners, supporting families and those who are hospitalized or in hospice care.