AllPaths Family Building and the broader fertility community are mourning the passing of Nancy Harrington, RNC, REIN. Nancy wore many different hats in her life and in her career, which we want to gratefully highlight.
Nancy was a truly trailblazing nurse in the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility, for over three decades. She was one of the earliest members of the Boston Fertility Society, now known as the New England Fertility Society (NEFS), later serving as NEFS President and the first nurse to ascend to this position. Nancy was a nurse’s nurse in the best way and simply loved REI nursing.
Advocacy Day 2016
Nancy was an advocate. She was a frequent and enthusiastic participant in RESOLVE Advocacy Days on Capitol Hill (Nancy is on the right in the photo shown here). Her perspective as a fertility nurse was always such a welcome and powerful addition to advocacy meetings. She was passionate about expanding access to fertility treatment. Even when she was not advocating herself, Nancy was cheering for fertility and family building advocacy efforts. She would frequently ask me, Davina Fankhauser from Fertility Within Reach, and others about the work of our organizations, always with encouraging words.
These questions about advocacy are just one example of how kind Nancy was. She would often reply to our AllPaths e-blasts. We always appreciated and welcomed these messages from Nancy – because she took the time to respond to them and because the replies themselves were so uplifting, even while she was in the throes of her own illness. In one of her emails last year Nancy wrote, “I am so proud of everything that AllPaths does for patients and professionals ….keep up the good work….”.
We will miss Nancy so much and send our deepest sympathy to her family, absolutely the brightest lights of her life. We will keep up the good work.
NEFS has established a scholarship program to support nursing attendance at the NEFS Annual meeting. Contributions in Nancy’s memory can be made to the “Nancy Harrington, RNC, REIN Memorial Scholarship Fund” at https://www.NEFS.org.