Cardiac nurse retires after four decades

Carol Connolly, RN, is well known by her colleagues in the Department of Cardiac Sciences in Calgary, having spent 35 of her 42-year career in nursing working specializing in cardiac care in sites around the city.

Connolly’s interest in nursing came about honestly: she followed in the steps of some of her closest family members.

“My mom and my great aunt were both nurses who graduated from the Holy Cross Hospital here in Calgary,” says Connolly. “I could have been the last graduating class from the Holy Cross, but I felt I needed to learn to be independent, so I received my training at the Royal Alexander School of Nursing in Edmonton.”

Connolly graduated in 1980 and was recruited to the combined intensive care and cardiac care unit at the Royal Alex right after graduation. The young nurse loved her new job and worked in Edmonton until 1987. It was then she came back to her hometown and began working at Calgary’s Rockyview General Hospital in both the Intensive Care and Cardiac Care units.

She moved to the Holy Cross Hospital in 1988, where she worked in the cardiac catheterization lab until the hospital’s doors closed in 1996.

Connolly remembers her time at that site fondly.

“Working at the Holy Cross was a beautiful place to work. There was a true real family atmosphere,” she says. “It was sad when it closed.”

Connolly, like many of her colleagues, began working at the Foothills Medical Centre’s cardiac catherization lab. She also worked out of the Rockyview Hospital and in the Special Services Building (Foothills Campus) and expanded her nursing expertise to include angiography, looking at arteries and blood vessels throughout the body. This challenged her to work in new areas of the body, including the brain.  

“I feel quite privileged that I have travelled the body through angiography during my career,” says Connolly.

In 1999, Connolly took on the role of research nurse working with Dr. Brent Mitchell on a ground-breaking study looking at the use of the drug amiodarone to prevent the development of arrhythmias after cardiac surgeries.

Connolly loved that work and stayed in her position until 2006 when the study was completed.

Shortly afterwards, she began working with the APPROACH team, entering data for the large cardiac database and teaching cardiac nurses around the city how to work with the registry. 

Her career then took a new path when she landed a job with Cardiac Navigation, a program born out of a 1996 Alberta-wide initiative to improve access to specialists and decrease wait times.

Cardiac Navigation began as a pilot program, but was made permanent the following year. Connolly worked in the office, triaging up to 50 cardiac cases from family doctors and emergency department physicians in central and southern Alberta each week and developing a database. She stayed in that role, in which she helped thousands of patients of all ages get access to the specialists they needed, until 2018, when the referral program ended.

“I worked with individuals with everything from atrial fibrillation to congenital conditions to chest pain, and referred patients to cardiac studies with local researchers,” says Connolly. “It was a much-needed program.”

In 2014, Connolly began simultaneously working in the Cardiac Central Referral Office, which was part of the Alberta-wide initiative Pathway to Care that started in 2014.

“I worked with both programs from 2014-2018,” explains Connolly, noting in her role at the central referral office, she dealt strictly with outpatient referrals to the cath lab. Connolly also worked as a nurse in the cath lab at Foothills Hospital where she triaged inpatients.  

The end of her career brought a new challenge as Connolly worked during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which there were high volumes of patients and fewer resources, due to the pressure on the health care system.

Now enjoying a retirement filled with her hobbies of gardening, camping, sewing, stained glass work and being active in the outdoors, Connolly reflects on a wonderful career.

“I loved my work in nursing,” she says. “I felt respected amongst my medical colleagues and was privileged to work alongside absolutely brilliant individuals.”