COVID-19 & Nurse Scientists on the Front Line: Tener Goodwin Veenema
Tener Goodwin Veenema, PhD, MPH, MS, RN, FAAN
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
Please describe your work with the COVID-19 pandemic.
I am the Co-chair of the COVID-19 Health Care Worker Protection Research Group at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.
Please give us information about your background and history as a nurse scientist.
I am a Professor of Nursing at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As an internationally recognized expert in disaster nursing and public health emergency preparedness, I have served as senior scientist to the DHHS Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR), Department of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs Emergency Management Evaluation Center (VEMEC), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). I have sustained career funding over 2.2 million dollars, a member of the Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness at the National Academy of Medicine, and an elected Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the National Academies of Practice, and the Royal College of Surgeons, Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery, Dublin, Ireland. My research is directed towards informing policy related to public health emergency preparedness and response for catastrophic events such as pandemics and radiation/nuclear disasters.
What else would you like the public to know about your role or the role of nurse scientists in the fight against COVID-19?
My program of research informs policy decisions about health care worker education, workflow changes and personal protective equipment. Fast accurate, evidence based information is needed to keep nurses and other health care providers safe and to make a rapid impact during this crisis.