Humans of Penn Nursing: Katie Woo Castelo, MSN, CPNP-PC, Nu’06, GNu’08
“I am a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the Emergency Department and I teach undergraduate nursing students. I have been writing encouraging messages with my children to healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the beginning, there was so much uncertainty and fear about Coronavirus. As a healthcare worker myself, we were all anxious as we had no idea what was going to happen. I thought about my colleagues, walking to work with that pit in their stomach and I wanted to do something that would make them smile and feel hopeful.
My kids look forward to it each week and I don’t know if I can ever stop! It’s been nice meeting people when I’m chalking and find out that it made the day of so many strangers.
I finally gave my chalk project an Instagram handle (chalkinyourwalkin) because I was noticing that people were posting it.”
To submit your own story, visit www.nursing.upenn.edu/humans.