Meet Ellen H. O’Donnell, Ph.D.

[Ellen O’Donnell, Ph.D., director of clinical psychology services, Shriners Children’s Boston]

[Shriners Children's logo]

Hi, I'm Doctor Ellen O'Donnell. I'm the director of psychology services here at Shriners Children's in Boston, and I am a licensed clinical psychologist with a specialty in pediatric psychology. I always knew that I wanted to work with children. I started college pre-med, thinking that I might be a pediatrician. And when I wasn't really enjoying my coursework, I met with a dean who asked me what sparked my interest in medicine, and I said that I was really interested in the relationship between the brain and behavior and child development and family systems. And she suggested I take a psychology class, and from there I was hooked.

I think we have kind of two main roles. One is to really help patients and families process whatever it is that happened to bring them here in the first place. And so that is often really having to talk about and kind of make sense of the worst day of their lives. So there's the trauma that often happens to land them here with us. But then there's also the coping with the actual care. Burn injuries are incredibly painful, and the process is really long. And so I see our job as preventing any kind of negative mental health outcomes or long term effects of trauma and helping them to feel safe and supported while they're here with us, and that they have the ability to cope with a really, really challenging situation, both in the short term, in the long term.

[Ellen O’Donnell, Ph.D., director of clinical psychology services, Shriners Children’s Boston]

There's a lot of it is sometimes coach reading or really making a plan for a patient and a family. There's a lot of collaboration that happens across the spectrum of care here. Some of my favorite moments have been salsa dancing with a patient who had one of the worst burn injuries that we've ever seen, I think as a team. And, had for a long time not even been able to walk. And, I could not salsa dance nearly as well as she could. And she taught me some moves. The level of expertise that you're going to get here is unmatched. Not possible anywhere else. And I think that for families to hear that they are getting the absolute highest standard of care is so comforting and reassuring, because that's really all any parent especially wants for their child.