Nursing doctoral student eyes City Council seat

Donna Gentile-O'Donnell, 41, plans to focus on health issues in her campaign. Demonstrating that nurses these days can do much more than just take blood and administer medication, health care advocate Donna Gentile-O'Donnell -- a Nursing School doctoral student -- recently announced her intention to run for a seat on City Council. Gentile-O'Donnell, 41, said she hopes to use her experience as a deputy health commissioner under Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell to push health issues to the forefront of the city's agenda. "If there was ever a time for someone with health care expertise and experience to seek elected office in Philadelphia, that time is now," she said when announcing her candidacy. Gentile-O'Donnell, who started her doctoral studies at Penn two years ago, is concentrating on combining nursing with governmental service by exploring the role nurses can play in the world of public policy. She said she chose Penn's Nursing School because it "has always been on the cutting edge of the discipline in terms of broad vision, practice and education." Gentile-O'Donnell is running as a Democrat for one of seven at-large seats on the 17-member Council. In May, a city-wide primary election will reduce the field to five candidates from each party. Since the Democratic party is the majority party in the city -- by a 3-to-1 margin -- the five Democrats and two of the five Republicans will then be elected in the general election in November. Though it is still too early to know how many people will run for the Democratic nominations, four of them will definitely be incumbent City Council members. Despite the fact that City Council rarely puts much weight on health care issues, Gentile-O'Donnell said she hopes to change that. She said there is an important "interconnection between health care and issues of the city," citing examples such as the collapse of the Allegheny health care system, the implications of people going off of welfare and the emerging biotechnology market. These issues have been brought to the forefront, she said, because the health care industry is one of the biggest economic engines in the region -- one out of every nine jobs is tied to it, Gentile-O'Donnell said. She added that she hopes to use her connections in the industry to "mobilize health care people" on Election Day to elect a Council member that cares about health issues. Many of her Nursing classmates are helping with the campaign, she said, noting that "any nurse who can organize a patient unit can organize a ward on election day." Gentile-O'Donnell, who also serves as president of Nurses of Pennsylvania, a statewide coalition for patient advocacy, said being a nurse gives her skills that are "critical to the future of the city" since nurses are naturally problem-solvers and good communicators. "Nursing in some ways is central to many other disciplines," she said, "because at the heart of nursing is caring." "I think Florence [Nightingale] would be proud of us," she said. Nursing Dean Emeritus and former interim University President Claire Fagin is co-chairing Gentile-O'Donnell's campaign with David Cohen, Rendell's former chief of staff. In a campaign press release, Fagin called Gentile-O'Donnell a "committed, caring, gutsy, outspoken visionary." And while Gentile-O'Donnell said she won't forget about issues like crime prevention, education and economic development, she said her main focus will be building on initiatives from her tenure as deputy health commissioner from 1992 until last month. Her work during those seven years included increasing city immunization rates and implementing programs for senior citizens like preventative flu shots and heat emergency programs. Gentile-O'Donnell's husband, former State Speaker of the House Bob Gentile-O'Donnell, has been her chief adviser in the campaign. And while Gentile-O'Donnell said her husband is her greatest source of inspiration, Rendell, who is serving as honorary finance chair for the campaign, has been "a central figure" in her political life.