This past week Creighton has been mourning the loss of a great friend and medical technician, someone who will be missed by many members of the community. Theresa Conway, a well-respected researcher at Creighton University Medical Center, passed away on January 31st. Conway was the Research Nurse Coordinator in the Clinical Research Department at CUMC. Many in Creighton’s medical community regarded Theresa as someone who had touched many lives, throughout her public and personal life.
“She was intelligent, personable, always engaging and smiling”, said Dr. Cindy Costanzo, Assistant Professor and Master’s Program Chair of the Nursing Program. “She was someone that you enjoyed being with, she has a strong presence about her and was a leader within her group.”
Theresa was a graduate of Creighton’s Nursing Graduate Program in 2008, earning a Master’s Degree as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. In her short time at Creighton, she was able to achieve a great amount of success that was inspiring to say the least. In 2007 Theresa, along with two other faculty members, presented a report at the International Nursing Society Conference held in Vienna, Austria. The report was a health report card of the Omaha Native American Tribe in Macy and Walthill, Nebraska. Theresa helped with the process of developing a database for the tribe so that they would be able to keep electronic records of screening health records of various schools. This has helped out the tribe immensely, giving them the ability to track patterns of health much easier than before and are able to compare year after year of data, so that they can identify problems to fix for greater future health.
Dr. Marlene Wilken, an associate professor in the School of Nursing, first met Theresa in the graduate program back in 2006. Dr. Wilken had enlisted her assistance with help on the Omaha Tribe database. She described that Theresa was very instrumental in the development of the project, spending countless hours designing the program. The health report card has been presented on the international, national, and local level and will most likely become a standard used for years to come. “Theresa Conway always had a ‘we can do it’ spirit and loved what she did”, said Dr. Wilken.
For all those who were fortunate to know Theresa, they could not help but notice her hard-working spirit, and her “can do” attitude. Theresa is survived by her husband Kevin, and their three children. Please keep Theresa and her family in your prayers.