Unparalleled Devotion to Her Patients With Cancer

Oncology nurse Megan handles her job with extraordinary grace and skill.

It is my great pleasure to nominate Megan English, RN, for the Extraordinary Healer Award. Megan is an outstanding oncology nurse at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she has worked as an infusion nurse since 2015. She specializes in the care of patients with solid tumors, including breast cancer, and has taken care of many of my patients over the last eight years with exceptional knowledge, kindness and care.

Megan has mastered every aspect of oncology nursing, from educating patients about their chemotherapy treatments to managing chemotherapy toxicities and reactions to providing support during difficult times. She creates precepts and mentors new staff, is a key member of our committee on enhancing communication between providers and nursing and regularly takes on the charge nurse role, which she handles with extraordinary grace and skill.

Megan’s father received a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer at age 40 when Megan was 9 years old and her younger sister was 5 years old. He died six weeks after being diagnosed. As devastating as this was for this young family, it has drawn both Megan and her mother, Chris Reilly, into the field of oncology and both work at Dana-Farber. Her mother has worked in operations at Dana-Farber since 2004, currently overseeing the practice directors throughout the institute. I have the great fortune to work closely with both Megan and Chris, and both are exceptional at what they do, particularly in the connection they form with patients and their focus on supporting patients and families. Although some would have stayed well clear of oncology after the impact it had on their family, they have both embraced oncology as their passion.

Megan joined Dana-Farber at a young age, but she has maturity beyond her years. She is always calm, fully engaged with patients and colleagues, and cares deeply about her patients and her job. Her nursing care and expertise, empathy, and devotion to her patients and to her career are outstanding. She is one of the most incredible people I have ever worked with and is highly deserving of the Extraordinary Healer Award.

Below is an article about Megan and her mother that was highlighted in our Dana-Farber online newsletter in May 2019.

Though they rarely see each other, both feel they were drawn to oncology by the diagnosis of their late husband and father, Rick Reilly. They work just two floors apart in the Yawkey Center, but Chris Reilly and her daughter, Megan English, BSN, RN, often go days without seeing each other. On-the-job hellos are usually accidental, either in the lunch line or when Reilly, director of ambulatory practice management on Yawkey 11, has a meeting on Yawkey 9, where English is an infusion nurse helping patients with breast and gastrointestinal cancers.

“We’re like two ships passing in the night,” says Reilly with a laugh.

Such sightings are currently nonexistent — with good reason. English gave birth to her second daughter, Emme, on St. Patrick’s Day, and is on maternity leave. But she still sees mom often; the two live just four miles apart in neighboring towns, and Reilly is the go-to babysitter for Emme and her two-year-old sister, Finley, when English and her husband, Jordan, need a night out. The whole family – including Reilly’s other daughter, Colleen — will be together on Mother’s Day.

“I’m so lucky,” English says, “but nobody is happier than Finley. Grammy is her favorite person in the whole world.”

There’s one person missing from these treasured family gatherings, and he is the reason Reilly and English both believe they were “subconsciously” drawn to oncology careers: their husband and father, Rick Reilly. Rick had just turned 40 in 1995 when he learned he had advanced colorectal cancer; he died six weeks after his diagnosis. English was 9, Colleen 5.

“Oncology chose me, not the other way around,” says English. “I always wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse, because babies really appealed to me, but then I got placed on a medical surgical floor in college and was drawn to the oncology patients. These people let you into their lives and allow you to witness all of their hope and strength.”

Her mom felt a similar pull. Chris Reilly stayed at home with her daughters for a few years after her husband’s death, and then was working as a practice manager at South Shore Hospital where a nurse manager noticed her rapport with patients and recommended she apply for a job at Dana-Farber. She got the position and came on staff in 2004 as a practice manager on Dana 10 infusion. From the start, she knew it was the right decision.

When English, then working night nursing shifts at Norwood Hospital, expressed a similar interest in cancer care, Reilly encouraged her to apply here in 2012. She was told to get more oncology experience, so she did; when she reapplied two years later as a Yawkey 9 infusion nurse, she joined her mom on staff.

“She was married shortly after she came to Dana-Farber, so I was careful that she be known as Megan English, not Megan Reilly, my daughter,” says Reilly. “I wanted her to make her own path, and she did, but slowly people started to find out. Now she’s proud to say that I’m her mom, and I’m obviously over the moon that she’s here.”

Among other things, Reilly could keep an extra-close eye on English when she was pregnant, with secret trips to the ninth floor even when she didn’t have meetings there. English (who noticed) said she felt so safe with her mom nearby that she had no qualms working up until one day before her first delivery — and two days before her second.

“It is interesting how we both wound up here,” says Reilly. “Neither of us was really looking for it, and some people say, ‘Why would you want to work in cancer after what you’ve been through?’ But it’s worked out beautifully.”

On that, mom and daughter can agree. “I care for of a lot of GI patients, and when I get a young dad with colorectal cancer I naturally think about my father,” says English, “I really do feel like we’re paying tribute to him.”

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