They traded in their Fordham baseball and softball gloves for exam gloves. They took off their Fordham football helmets and donned protective masks. Instead of passing the ball, they hand out assists of a different nature. They run to danger instead of a finish line. They used to clear the way for running back, now they clear the way for emergency vehicles. They come from different sports but the one thing the former Fordham student-athletes have in common is that they are on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak. Doctors, nurses, policemen, EMT, firefighters, grocery store workers, they all are there when called upon, living out the Jesuit ideal of men and women for others.
 
Today we recognize former cross country/track and field Ram Siobhan Cooney, FCRH '12, a Nurse Practitioner who has seen her job transformed by the COVID-19 outbreak.
 
Cooney serves as a Nurse Practitioner and a Patient Care Director of the Operating Room at Hospital for Special Surgery, where she has worked for the past ten years. Her usual duties include assisting with orthopedic surgeries but that all changed in March
 
"Normally, our hospital is an orthopedic surgical hospital," said Cooney. "Once the pandemic reached New York City, HSS leadership decided to stop performing elective procedures and transform into an acute general hospital to assist the community in fighting COVID-19.  Frontline staff were either redeployed or retrained to take care of an entirely new patient population, and everyone rose to the occasion.  Operating rooms were transformed overnight into ICUs, and an Orthopedic Triage Center was created so that anyone who needed emergency surgery in NYC could receive it."
 
As part of the change, Cooney's role is to be a support for frontline nursing staff and make sure they have all the resources they need to care for and recover the patient population. 
 
"I am proud of my organization's response to care for those who need it most," said Cooney.  "I am truly appreciative of all the team leadership skills developed as a student athlete at Fordham so that I can continue to aid in the community response to this pandemic."
 
Cooney was a member of the Fordham women's cross country and track and field programs from 2008-2012.