May 8, 2025
By Courtney Mitchell
Katherine Nell Acierno was known for her kindness. When you mention her name, it’s the first word those who knew her — and now have the privilege to know of her — say.
Her deep compassion for those around her was why she’d chosen to study nursing at UNC, said her mother. And when Katherine discovered the volunteer doula program UNC Birth Partners, there was a spark in the daughter Beth and Vince Acierno had long known would devote her life to the care of others.
“It was really important for her to have a career where she was helping people,” said Beth. “That was just part of who she was. And she was so excited to be a doula.”
Katherine’s life was cut short in a pedestrian-vehicle accident in October 2021, just one semester before she would have graduated with her BSN. The Carolina Nursing student had just started to serve as a volunteer doula, having been inspired by her maternal health clinical where she’d seen a baby born for the first time. After a doula shift, she’d call her parents, full of adrenaline and excitement after having helped families through one of the most remarkable moments of their lives.
“For a young woman of 21, it really seemed that she had found her passion,” said Beth. “She was very excited about being trained as a doula, and where that might have taken her, we’ll never know.”
At Carolina Nursing, Katherine’s remarkable generosity lives on through those who follow in her footsteps. In her memory, the school and family founded the Katherine Nell Acierno Women’s Health / Doula Scholars Program in 2022 to infuse Katherine’s special mix of care and empathy into the experiences of nursing students interested in women’s health.
Doulas are trained professionals who provide continuous physical, emotional and informational support to birthing people before, during and shortly after childbirth. They can walk parents through the stages of labor, offer physical touch, use aromatherapy, help them change positions and more.
“Katherine was bright, so full of passion for service and caring for families,” said Birth Partners Director Rhonda Lanning, DNP, CNM, LCCE, IBCLC, RN, a clinical professor at the school and faculty advisor to the program. “Her passing is an unspeakable loss, but the family’s desire to have something positive in her memory is powerful for us all.”
Scholars are students serving as volunteer doulas who want to make an extra commitment as a doula in the Birth Partners program, grow personally and professionally, and embrace the ideas and values that Katherine held dear.
Birth Partners is a volunteer doula program with approximately 120 doulas at UNC Health. The program expands access to evidence-based doula care by providing doula services free of charge to families giving birth at N.C. Women’s Hospital. Volunteer doulas commit to providinglabor support for at least 12 hours per month, often in addition to being full-time graduate or undergraduate students or working full-time jobs. Overall, Birth Partners served more than 800 patients in 2024.
Most Scholars complete NURS 611, a service-learning elective course, with Lanning that includes birth doula training and service in Birth Partners, but the program is also open to other students at the nursing school who are birth doulas.
The Aciernos are close to the program, providing gift bags to Scholars that contain the things Katherine loved, like vanilla candles, coffee, candy and bubbles. They also host the Scholars for a dinner at their home in January, which coincides around Katherine’s birthday and Katherine’s Kindness Week — a ‘kindness’ drive led by the Scholars that promotes Katherine’s memory to the campus community through acts of kindness.
Along with Katherine’s friends and former swimming teammates, the Scholars host a platelet drive, as platelet donation was another way Katherine routinely gave back to her community. A Katherine’s Kindness shirt, designed by one of Katherine’s former BSN classmates, depicts icons that marked Katherine’s ways of giving — a blood donation bag, a heart, a stethoscope and intertwined hands — carries her spirit on all who wear it.
The community connection with other doulas, and the programming, training and support, are lessons Elizabeth Melendez, BSN Military Pathway ’24, said she calls on regularly for her work as a surgical nurse at Fort Liberty Army Base in Fayetteville this year.
“It was really impactful for me, and I felt very lucky to be able to be part of it, to get to learn from Dr. Lanning and experience the kindness of Katherine’s parents,” she said.
“As a surgical nurse in a fast-paced environment, I have lots of patients, and I need to use my critical thinking skills. My experience as a doula reminds me, even when I’m busy, to have patience, compassion and empathy, and to really be there for my patients.”
“What I think rubs off on them in doula training is an emphasis on bedside manner, how to help someone in duress,” said Vince. “It gives them compassion and empathy. I think there’s a difference between being a nurse who is good at their job and a nurse who can do that and build a connection with a patient.”
Brianna Bryant, BSN ’25, applied to the program at the end of her doula service-learning elective with Lanning last year when she learned about Katherine.
“I didn’t know Katherine, but we get to know about her through this program and her parents, and we know she lived a life of high passion and service, which resonated with me. Giving back to the community and being of service is what nursing is about — even just being good to your neighbor, which we do through Katherine’s Kindness Week.”
Bryant said getting to support and witness childbirth is emotional, and this program has influenced how she sees her part in it. “Whatever I can do to make someone else’s experience better, I’m always going to do that. It’s a moment that, if someone lets you be part of it, is out of this world. And it’s something now I’ll never take for granted.”
Helen Gaitan, BSN ’25, has been a volunteer doula with Birth Partners for two years and has attended around 40 births. Through this program, she said, “I feel like we’ve all been able to grow together in this community.”
“Every time Katherine’s mom talks to us, I remember how much of an impact Katherine had. It reminds me that being a doula and a nurse is an honor and a privilege. There’s something about finding ways to help these patients when they’re at their most vulnerable, especially the ones with low support systems. They might arrive at the hospital thinking they won’t be able to have someone there for them as a person, not just as apatient, and we can change their outlook in their labor process.”
Lanning said that knowing about and bringing Katherine’s life into training is a powerful way to ground students in the caring aspect of nursing, something they can carry with them into their nursing careers, however those careers take shape.
“My hope is that these students who participate in the Scholars Program take their role and service as a doula forward into their career in Katherine’s memory, to be able to remember that nursing is about patient- and family-centered care, listening to people, being with people,” Lanning said. “When you’re working as a nurse, you can get lost in the tasks. But this experience helps them remember that the core of nursing is about caring and being in service to other people.”
Each year, before commencement, the Aciernos present the Scholars with vibrant purple cords to wear at graduation, a reminder of not only their journey as nurses, but also as nurses who learned from Katherine.
They hope that in future years, the program can continue to grow, making room for more Scholars, more doula training and more opportunities for professional and personal development that can make nursing students into stronger, more caring nurses, the kind of nurse Katherine had aimed to be.
To help expand the reach of the Katherine Nell Acierno Women’s Health / Doula Scholars Program, and the memory of Katherine, please contact Kelly Kirby at kelly_kirby@unc.edu.
