October 12, 2023

Robyn Finney APRN, CRNA, DNAP (NA ’03, NA ’18), a faculty member in the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences Nurse Anesthesia Program, received an Award of Distinction for the HELP Trained Peer Support Workshops she has conducted since 2018. This award was granted by the Mayo Clinic School of Continuous Professional Development at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Annual Faculty Award Ceremony in recognition of Finney’s creativity in teaching, dedication to education, and commitment and talents as an educator for the course. The Healing Emotional Lives of Peers (HELP) Program was started in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine in 2018 and is now an enterprise-wide resource for employees involved in stressful or traumatic clinical events. Prior to implementing the HELP Program, Robyn developed a four-hour workshop on second victim experiences and peer support to arm trained peer supporters. Since going live across the enterprise in 2021, there have been more than 700 requests for peer support from the HELP Program, with 675 trained peer supporters offering compassion to more than 2,000 employees. Finney is an assistant professor of anesthesiology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.