{"id":80143,"date":"2013-07-02T12:23:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T16:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=80143"},"modified":"2013-07-02T14:23:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T18:23:45","slug":"longtime-nurse-anesthetist-says-goodbye-to-uconn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/07\/longtime-nurse-anesthetist-says-goodbye-to-uconn\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime Nurse Anesthetist Says Goodbye to UConn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pattilynn<\/a>
Pattilynn Conard, pictured several years ago in a John Dempsey Hospital operating room, retires as the UConn Health Center\u2019s longest-serving certified registered nurse anesthetist. (Photo provided by Pattilynn Conard)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The longest-serving certified registered nurse anesthetist in UConn Health Center history is retired after 36 years of service.<\/p>\n

Pattilynn Conard says goodbye with fond memories of the Health Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are always learning at an academic institution,\u201d Conard says. \u201cThe Health Center truly is a center of health as it offers the opportunity to open many doors and advance in one\u2019s profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of her career she was both an instructor\u2014in anesthesiology on the UConn School of Medicine faculty\u2014and a student\u2014earning degrees in biology, philosophy and medical ethics. But the patient was always her primary focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cA nurse anesthetist very fortunately has the wonderful experience of offering the patient clinical care eight hours a day,\u201d Conard says. \u201cYou\u2019re always in contact with a patient so you really have to love what you do. You need to want to help the patient grasp some control over their illness and disease, be it chronic pain, acute pain, the safe and pain free surgery, and resuscitation efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

She first joined the UConn family in 1971 at McCook Hospital in Hartford, which didn\u2019t have a nurse anesthetist at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the only one there,\u201d Conard recalls. \u201cThere were two doctors and me.”<\/p>\n

She was there less than a year, compelled to leave Connecticut by her husband\u2019s military commitments. But five years later she was back for good, this time at the two-year-old John Dempsey Hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Anesthesia was in its infancy,\u201d Conard says. \u201cIt was in charge of the operating room, anesthesia, intensive care unit, emergency room, and respiratory therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also was involved in dozens of research grants and publications on topics such as respiratory control mechanisms, inhaled anesthetics, and pediatric pain control, including study of the fentanyl lollipop, which enabled pain-free delivery of chemotherapy to pediatric cancer patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a narcotic grape-flavored lollipop that was experimental at the time,\u201d Conard says. \u201cSome of the anesthesiologists and I had a research study where we actually administered this to these children, and it was absolutely wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was in 1988, when the fifth floor of John Dempsey Hospital was the pediatric floor. The fentanyl lollipop would win Food and Drug Administration approval and is used today.<\/p>\n

\u201cPattilynn has been a true pioneer among advanced practice nurses at the UConn Health Center,\u201d says Chief Nursing Officer Ellen Leone. \u201cI think it only fitting for each of us, as nurses, to take a moment to celebrate the remarkable career of our nurse colleague.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her last day was June 13.<\/p>\n

Dr. Thomas Yasuda, clinical chief of the UConn Health Center Department of Anesthesiology, credits Conard with being personally involved in the \u201ctremendous clinical growth of the Department of Anesthesiology. She has been a leader in the institution and has provided anesthesia care to thousands of residents of the Farmington Valley and the state of Connecticut.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pattilynn Conard retires as the UConn Health Center\u2019s longest-serving certified registered nurse anesthetist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":80149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-80143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 07:55:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80143"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80157,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80143\/revisions\/80157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/80149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80143"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=80143"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=80143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}