Alumna Returns as School Nurse and Working with the Athletic Training Department

Maura Dussman Haddad ’09 returned to Saint Viator last month in a newly created position as the school nurse. However, as a nurse practitioner, Haddad will provide first aid and monitor medications, as well as work to monitor the overall health of students and staff.

She has also been working with head athletic trainer Dr. Arika Smetana to create a medical model that weaves together athletic training and nursing to best serve the student and faculty population.

In this new medical model she and Dr. Smetana are creating, they aim to create a concussion oversight team, provide CPR certification, work with the counseling department when mental health needs are identified, provide faculty in-services, and work with wellness teachers on what to include in health courses. They also will oversee the collection of IHSA physical forms for athletic eligibility.  

Haddad credits Saint Viator’s science department and specifically Fr. John Van Wiel, C.S.V., and his honors chemistry course with providing her with a solid foundation she needed to jumpstart her nursing career.

After graduating from Saint Viator, Haddad earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing at St. Louis University in 2013. She remained in St. Louis for her first nursing job before moving back to Chicago, where she started working as a Pediatric ICU Nurse at Rush University in 2016. 

While working at Rush, she enrolled in the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Primary Care program. During grad school, she worked in the Ambulatory RN of Pediatric Epilepsy and Neurology, working with three epileptologists who cared for hundreds of children in the greater Chicago area.

She earned her doctorate as a nurse practitioner in 2021 at Rush and then worked as a Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner at a private pediatrician's office for nearly three years. 

“During my time as a Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, I found that I was often caring for high schoolers and, more notably, teenage girls,” Haddad says. “I had a great experience with families and patients, but I felt I could use my strengths to establish a rapport with teenagers in a school setting.”

During her interview process, Haddad met with Dr. Smetana, Mrs. Kathy Gallagher in the Dean’s Office, Dean Deborah Scerbicke, and President Ryan Aiello.

“With each of them, I was able to discuss just how passionate I was to return to Saint Viator,” she says. “I loved my experience [here].”