While some Eagles were running the marathon or cheering from the sidelines last Monday, a group of Boston College nursing students was among the many health professionals waiting in the medical tents at the finish line.
“We’re all there for the same goal—to really take care of these runners after they’ve completed an incredible feat,” Kristyn Stoia said.
After working the marathon as a solo volunteer last year, Stoia, GCSON ’26, helped organize a group of 26 graduate nursing students to volunteer at the 130th Boston Marathon.
Stoia noted that growing up in Boston and watching the marathon as a child motivated her to volunteer.
“I’ve always loved, obviously, the marathon, and I love sports, and medical volunteering was a way to kind of combine the two,” Stoia said.
Even though it’s disappointing to go to the medical tents post-marathon, Stoia shared that the athletes all had a sense of pride in their races despite injuries.
“I thought that that was so awesome, despite being injured, that they still were, like, really chatty about how their race went—it’s a big day for them,” Stoia said. “Obviously, being a medical volunteer, they do not want to see you. You’re not like the person they want to see. You definitely want to give them the best experience ever.”
Although sports medicine is a speciality the nurses have little clinical experience with, Stoia said the group felt that BC prepared them well to triage and treat the runners.
“It was so awesome to kind of be thrown into a new experience and use those foundational skills that Boston College really did a great job providing and teaching us,” Stoia said.
Volunteering also provided the nursing students with an opportunity to treat unique clinical presentations they’d otherwise rarely see, according to Stephan Wallace, GCSON ’28.
“That’s something that you don’t really see in the hospital as much,” Wallace said. “You see hyponatremia in the hospital, but it was just unique to see how the weather [impacted how] the patient might present.”
Working in the field for the first time started as nerve-racking for Ashley Martino, GCSON ’27, but patient care soon became instinctual.
“As soon as I was in the field, like, my nurse brain takes over, and I was just like, ‘All right, I know what I’m gonna say to you. I know what I’ll do to help you,’ and you know, it’s kind of instinctual at that point,” Martino said.
Alongside BC’s graduate students, the group was among numerous physicians, emergency medical technicians, and physical therapists, which Regan King, GCSON ’26, said simulated a typical day working in a hospital.
“It was really cool because, I mean, that’s what we’re going to do in a professional setting every day, like you never really know who you’re going to have to interact with for patient care,” King said. “So it was really cool to be able to work like that in a field setting.”
For Sarina Patel, GCSON ’26, the day was a nice change of pace from her shifts at the cardiac care unit at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“It was also nice to be, like, working for happiness,” Patel said. “It was really nice to just have some happiness, people enjoying their lives.”
