URI Nursing Professor Helps Advise COVID-19 Patients

KINGSTON, RI (WLNE) – URI Professor Mary Cloud, a nursing professor and registered nurse, is working with the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) to help advise residents who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Cloud qualifies as an advisor and investigator for COVID-19 patients as her specialty in community health nursing gives such qualifications.

She informs residents by phone that they have tested positive, telling them how to keep themselves and others safe, noting the patient’s symptoms, and tracing any contact they have had with others previous to the test.

Cloud also looks into the medical history of the patient, seeing if there are chronic diseases, like asthma or any heart, kidney, or liver disease, that could potentially create a dangerous case of COVID-19.

She notes it is important to know what symptoms the patient has now so in the future, they could “really look back at what happened, what was the course, what could we do, when do we need to do it, to better understand how to cope in the future.”

Even though contact lists that Cloud has been receiving are shorter now than in the past, she still believes misinformation about the virus, mainly the severity of it, is harmful and she has to dispute some of these fall claims during phone calls.

Cloud takes the opportunity to “dispel any false information or any rumors that people might have, and give people information and reassurance,” during these phone calls.

Not only does she help as an advisor for the DOH, but she also acts as a counselor when talking to people on calls who mention they feel isolated and emotional, reassuring them that the DOH cares “about you, and we want to help you.”

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