Andrea Bertheaud, assistant clinical professor in the Elms School of Nursing, has been named a recipient of the 2025 Healthcare Heroes award by Business West.
Andrea and seven other recipients will be honored with a dinner planned for Oct. 22 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Business West created the annual award in 2017 to celebrate leaders, innovators, and inspirational figures within the Greater Springfield healthcare sector.
Andrea was cited for her lengthy career as a critical care and psychiatric nurse, and for her work over the last decade teaching new generations of nurses at Elms College.
A profile of her in Business West describes how she stresses to her students the importance of understanding the technical aspects of nursing and medicine and the importance of approaching patients with empathy and humanity. She tells the publication, “I want them to realize that could be me. I’m one car accident away from having a traumatic brain injury. Then my whole world would change, and this is how I would act.’ Elms students tend to be very, very smart, but because of their background, some of them — not all, but some of them — don’t have exposure to people who have had challenges.”
Julie Beck, dean of the School of Nursing, says of Andrea that through her influence on so many nursing students, and her connections with many community groups in the area and beyond, she has become “the face of Elms College nursing to many community members.”
To read more of the Business West profile on Andrea Bertheaud, go to https://businesswest.com/blog/andrea-bertheaud/