www.BXTimes.com BRONX WEEKLY May 10, 2020 2
On the front line of COVID-19: Meet Grand Concourse
native and nurse practitioner, Deirdre Keane
BY JENNA BAGCAL
Grand Concourse native
Deirdre Keane’s journey
to becoming a nurse
practitioner started when
she was just a teen.
At that time, her father
had just died from cancer
and her mother quit her
job to raise her and her siblings.
Though money was
tight, Keane recalled that
her mother encouraged
her kids to work hard in
all aspects of their lives.
The steadfast work ethic
coupled with an inspiration
to work in oncology
led Keane to attend nursing
school in Boston.
“I really wanted to
work in oncology after losing
my dad to cancer, but I
knew my family wouldn’t
be able to afford for me
to go to med school and
needed a major that would
give me a career straight
out of college. I was very
fortunate and got a scholarship
to nursing school
in Boston,” Keane said
in an email to the Bronx
Times.
After earning a bachelor’s
of science in nursing,
Keane began working
as a pediatric ICU nurse at
the Children’s Hospital at
Montefi ore (CHAM).
“I loved and still love it
there. However, I wanted
to be the one making the
decisions,” Keane said.
“I worked there for fi ve
years full time while I
went to school part time
at Columbia to become a
nurse practitioner and
then continued to get my
doctorate.”
She said that she could
never forget about her
dream of taking care of patients
with cancer, so she
joined the team at Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center (MSKCC) as a
pediatric ICU nurse practitioner.
During this time,
she continued working
part time and eventually
per diem at Montefi ore.
“Then COVID hit. New
York city was the epicenter
of the pandemic and
at the very heart of it, was
the Bronx,” Keane said. “I
had to help. So nearly every
night I was not at my
full-time job working as
an NP at MSKCC, I was
working as an RN in the
pediatric ICU at CHAM.”
For the past two
months, Keane has
worked six nights a week
in addition to attending
virtual classes to earn
her MBA from New York
University. She recalled
that Montefi ore was hit
“incredibly hard” during
the onset of the COVID-19
crisis and some weeks at
CHAM were “scary and
disheartening.”
“We worked as a team
and kept going though and
now we are fi nally starting
to see improvements,”
she shared.
Keane said that her
friends both near and far
have been supportive during
this time, asking if she
needed personal protective
equipment (PPE) or
other supplies.
“Truthfully, I, personally,
don’t need anything.
The hospitals I work in
have enough PPE to get by
and many organizations
have been incredibly generous
by donating food,”
said Keane, who added
that her loved ones have
also helped to keep her
mental health in check.
To lend her help even
further to the Bronx,
which has the highest
COVID-19 death rate in
any U.S. county, with the
poorest congressional district,
she joined the East
Bronx Democratic Group.
The group had created
a mutual aid fund to address
the Bronx’s food insecurity
issue.
“I wanted to help more
but free time is still limited.
However, I am a huge
runner and big marathoner.
I thought maybe
I could intrigue friends
to donate by setting up a
running challenge for myself,”
said Keane.
Together with the
group, she created a fundraiser
to raise money for
grocery store cards that
would go toward lowincome
families in the
Bronx. Her goal is to run
1000 miles in the next
three months, a feat that
she has not yet taken on
before. She aims to match
each mile she runs with a
dollar donation.
So far, she’s run 70
miles in the fi rst six days.
“Just 930 miles to go,”
she said.
Those interested in donating
to the cause can
do so at this link: bit.ly/
DK4BX.
Deirdre Keane C
ourtesy of Deirdre Keane
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