Class of 2013 grads keep joys of friendship, learning, nursing, and leadership flowing through regular meet-ups.
When picking the Baltimore restaurant to host the next of their mostly annual and occasionally more frequent get-togethers, the question for Johns Hopkins School of Nursing alumni Matt Lindsley, Teresa Pfaff, Soohyun Kim, and Pawla Wenga might as well come down to: Is there a brick wall?
Such a background is essential for re-creating a group image taken way back at a post-graduation going-away party for Kim, who had earned the “ultimate public health nursing job,” according to Pfaff—as a public health nurse in Alaska. “Riding the planes, dealing with botulism. Botulism! Home visits in remote Alaskan communities,” Pfaff says. “Wow!” That photo, and the snapshots taken each time the four meet up, present visual evidence of a moment when—as fresh grads of the Public Health Nursing program in December 2013—Wenga, Pfaff, Kim, and Lindsley realized that a bond forged at school was ending, and didn’t have to break at commencement. In fact, it couldn’t.
The bricks behind them could just as easily stand for walls each has hit—barriers surmounted in no small part through the support, guidance, and love flowing from this friendship born of a farewell.
Put their career experiences, public health perspectives, and personalities together, and what you’ve got is an evening of joshing, jawing, irreverence, encouragement, and affection as time and space between the four melts completely away. Hellos, hugs, a cocktails-and-appetizers order, and once again they’re just a group of caregivers who really, really care—about the world, about public health nursing, and about each other.
‘Making a Difference’
A decade-plus on, Lindsley, Pfaff, and Wenga have stayed mostly local, with Kim at least regional these days.
Wenga is the research nurse manager and assistant program manager for the Upper Aerodigestive Cancer Department at the Johns Hopkins Skip Viragh Cancer Center. A 2020 winner of an Excellence in Nursing Award from Baltimore magazine, she specializes in thoracic and head & neck malignancies. “Making a difference—the fact that I am playing a vital role in shaping the future of cancer treatment while impacting families and communities every day through my work—keeps me motivated,” Wenga explains.
She’s passionate about possibilities for nurses in research—particularly in clinical trials. Her crusade “to expand our scope” leads back to education and, as she regularly looks to hire, to building job candidates better prepared to make the most of the gig. (Pfaff, a JHSON part-time clinical instructor in addition to her day job as a public health nurse supervisor in Baltimore County, quickly attempts to entice Wenga in for an upcoming class to proselytize.)
Lindsley credits Wenga, in fact, with arranging his first job post MSN and MPH degree completion doing research with her after he’d admittedly waited a bit too long for the ideal job to find him. “Oncology research nursing … that was not on my radar.” He has split much of the decade-plus since graduation between Ellicott City MD and a plot of fertile land he owns with his partner in Pennsylvania. (“Gentleman farmer” is way too generous a description, he demurs. He has maintained a strong belief in sustainable agriculture, and local food system resilience as one answer to public health challenges of pervasive high-calorie and low-nutrient food procurement in nursing homes and other health care facilities.)
As he works toward a doctorate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Lindsley serves as an officer with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. That can mean weeks at a time at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the South, providing direct care to detainees, and filling critical staffing shortages. “There’s such a need for nurses in this environment especially given the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic” he explains.
Kim, who had a head start on them all with the Alaska gig (and who confirms that it was, indeed, a dream first job—“Alaska was amazing!”), works for the federal government through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), since 2019 with the Maternal and Child Health Bureau in Rockville MD. Kim was among the first cohort of fellows of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, a global nursing organization focused on the intersection of human and planetary health—from air quality to safe water and chemicals, including soil health. (Kim recruited Lindsley for the second cohort. It was not a hard sell for “Farmer Matt.”)
As a public health nurse supervisor in Baltimore County, Pfaff is responsible for the implementation, development, and management of some of the Department of Health’s Maternal and Child Health programs including the Babies Born Healthy Care Coordination Program, and the Administrative Care Coordination Unit. She’s also an unapologetic tech and data enthusiast. So much so that during recent heart tests, when her halter monitor’s sensors suddenly lit up, she wasn’t freaking out, “I was so impressed by the level of data that was in the readout! It was amazing.”
“Making a difference … impacting families and communities every day … keeps me motivated.”
The heart issue is under control. “We’re all becoming patients ourselves now,” Pfaff jokes. The data nerdiness is incurable. During an annual Maryland Department of Health meeting on reporting for her maternal and child health programs, she recently noticed an opportunity to work with the state to enhance data requirements. She has helpfully suggested some tweaks that can be used in other jurisdictions. Her next quarterly report—capturing the new data—should persuade them to adopt it, Pfaff figures. Either way, “It does feel nice to be at that point where, we’ve been out in the field now for more than 10 years, leading with a leadership/growth lens.”
Until Next Time
At this table, nothing is forbidden, or sacred. Soon, a fly on the wall is just that, a listener straining to take in the knowledge, honesty, experience, and good-natured snark filling the air on an open patio in Baltimore. Wenga, Kim, Pfaff, and Lindsley have a lot to catch up, debate, and dish on. And the appetizers are here.
Time to buzz off. But not before exacting a winking promise to at least consider that one of these catch-ups might soon happen at a sanctioned JHSON alumni event. Can’t let Wenga, Lindsley, Kim, and Pfaff keep all this love to themselves, can we?