Chris Casello ’15

It's hard to say which was more unnerving for Chris Casello ’15 BSN. Spending five hours every Thursday night during a lab component in his Nursing 210 course as a Holy Family University transfer student alongside your future wife, Kerry, ’15 BSN, or eight years later, standing in front of 40 new nursing students as their clinical instructor. 

Casella, now a staff and charge nurse in the cardiac intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a part-time clinical instructor at Northeastern University, is a father of three who has obviously found his confidence and his footing. 

“I came to Holy Family University on a personal recommendation because they had the most distinguished nursing program in that area,” Casello said. “Holy Family is a great place and affords you the opportunity to grow your confidence through some great clinicals at some amazing hospitals in the Philadelphia region. It gave me an opportunity to see so many more aspects of nursing than I ever imagined. It helped me to find my niche in critical care. 

“Critical care is never the same day, ever,” he continued. “I have worked with numerous heart transplant patients, and the care is always individualized. As nurses, we get to do that job of individualizing the patient’s plan of care.” 

Moving into education was a jump, Casello admits, but one that he took, again on a personal recommendation. 

“As a critical care nurse, I find it gratifying to respond to emergencies, to direct responses and code blues,” he said. “In these instances, I feel I am really doing what I was meant to do. When I began teaching, it was like being a nurse for the first time all over again. Now, it just flows.” 

Casello is now in pursuit of an MBA, an “after bedtime degree,” and hasn’t ruled out education as a new path. 

“I don’t know what my next career move is, perhaps to become head of a department at Mass General or maybe to become an educator,” he said. “I have a lot of interest in education.”