I have so much to be thankful for this year, but most of all I am thankful for you. Yesterday, many of our MSBI family were in the hospital caring for our patients who couldn’t be home for the holiday. It means so much to me that you took time away from your own families to care for our patients.
Microbiology Lab team members
10 Dazian nurses
Attending physicians on Dazian
More patient care team members on 10 Dazian
Lab team members
Many of you joined us at our Thanksgiving Lunch in the Dazian Rotunda. Smiles and spirits were bright. Thanks to our food service crew and volunteer servers who made it happen.
I recently had the chance to sit down with Minimol Shebeen, RN, who is our Assistant Director of Perioperative Services and a 2017-2018 Heart Award recipient. She is admired by her staff and so many others around the hospital, and you’ll see why in this video.
Click to watch the video
Mini brought up how hard her staff works and that this week is Perioperative Nurses’ week. I’m so grateful to our entire Perioperative team for their flexibility, dedication, and service to our patients in a challenging environment. They put in long hours and treat complex patients with grace and dedication.
Some members of our Perioperative team, from left to right: Arthur Lipata, Marie Noelle, Christal Cayard, Dwayne Wilson, Camilla Bell, Ancell Cabrera, Ma Conception Rugas, Reid Trevor, Yuberky Delgado, Dawn Pickering.
Perioperative team members from left to right: Imelda Harjano, RN; Antionette Smith, USA; Irma Mondon, Surgical Technologist; Tiffany Chuang, RN, Cindy Girdusky,RN; Barbara Hernandez, RN; Maricon Rugas , RN.
Amber Geib (Associate Director of Food and Nutrition) completes the marathon!
Many of you also raised money for various charities as a part of your marathon adventure. Amanda Anderson, our Assistant Director of Quality and Patient Care Services, helped fund a whole year of healthcare for three children by raising money for the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center. Amber Geib, our Associate Director of Food and Nutrition, raised money for Think Pink Rocks, a breast cancer awareness organization. Thank you both and everyone else who donated or raised money as a part of the marathon.
Amanda Anderson and Amber Geib pre-race!
In addition to runners, our ED team and other clinicians donated their time to care for participants at the finish line medical tent. The marathon runners had the best care out there.
Our MSBI medical team included: Saadia Akhtar (Emergency Medicine-captain), Joan Bosco (Internal Medicine-IM), Andrew Chen (Family Medcine-FM), Jared Rowley (IM), Anika Hessdorfer PA (EM), Reiichiro Obata (IM), Yumiko Kanei (Cardiology attending), Supreeti Behuria (cardiology fellow), Jeffrey Nahn (EM), Janice Shin (EM), Kimberly Murdaugh (IM), Jacob Goertz (EM attending), Edward, Harold Nabet (IM), Carmen Leung (Psych), Misa Hyakutake (IM), Nicole Kaban (EM attending), Barbara Jean Barnett (Chief Medical Officer), Christine Mahoney, RN (Chief Nursing Officer), Joy McIlvaine, RN (Nurse Education), Christine Lu (Neuro), Bryanna Gulotta (IM).
Anika Hessdorfer and Saadia Akhtar, who captained the marathon medical volunteers group from MSBI.
Pictured from L to R: (resident from Downstate-Carolyn Lee), Christine Lu, Joan Bosco, and Carmen Leung.
Did you know our very own Garrison Resnick (Security Director for MSBI) is also a certified EMT and the VP of Operations for the volunteer group Central Park Medical Unit? Here he is briefing his team before the marathon.
These are just a few stories about our MSBI family who participated last weekend. We are so proud of you for your bravery, generosity, and commitment to your community and your health. Go MSBI!
It’s been a busy few weeks and we’ve been celebrating you and your commitment to MSBI.
We ended October with appreciation events for our employees. Check out the video to see pictures of staff from Union Square and both the day and night staff from Petrie.
On October 23, we honored employees who demonstrate a body, mind, and soul commitment to our patients. Presented by the HealthCare Chaplaincy Network, we gave The Wholeness of Life Award to Horace Chin Sang, a PCA on 6K. Here is a quote from Gary Carlisle, RN, the nurse manager on 6K:
“He actively listens to patients, anticipates their needs and strives to meet these needs with style and grace, as well as with good humour. He makes every patient feel important and cares for them as if he were caring for a member of his own family.”
Wholeness of Life Winner Horace Chin Sang, PCA, with Louise Bertrand, USA, Gary Carlisle, RN, Hyacinth Hamilton-Gayle, RN, and Reverend Amy Strano from the Healthcare Chaplaincy.
We also honored Antoinette LaTouche, RN, and John Mondanaro, MA, LCAT, MT-BC, CCLS, with Care and Compassion Awards, and remembered Sophie Marut, RN, beloved nurse in the MICU who passed away earlier this year. Thanks to our wonderful spiritual care team for coordinating this beautiful event.
Care & Compassion winner, Antoinette LaTouche, RN, with her colleagues from General Medical Associates in Union Square.
John Mondanaro, with the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine team.
Sophie Marut, RN, who was honored with a Care & Compassion Memorial Award. She was a nurse on the MICU.
Quality week was October 15-21 and our quality team awarded certificates in recognition of our departments’ outstanding work keeping our patients safe.
Lola Chlupsa from the OR with Ellen Paskin from Quality.
Cath Lab Recovery Unit team members celebrating Quality.
Some of the MSBI pharmacy day staff: George Lamothe, Janelle Small, Ming Ng, Ken Xu, Lina Drillman.
It’s Pharmacy Week! We are lucky to have pharmacists that are integrated into patient care throughout many of our locations. They do so much more than provide our patients medication. They round on the units regularly and are wonderful educators and champions of safety. We are also grateful for all of our pharmacy technicians for their invaluable support and contributions throughout the year.
Union Square pharmacy staff: Juan Ujaque, Racquel McCalla, Monique Tsui, Christine Chan, Julianna Lam, Shelagh Tankersley.
MSBI overnight pharmacist staff from left to right: Lisa Hernandez, Brian Ta, George Kyereme.
MSBI evening staff, front row, left to right: Bassey Ekpo, April Castillo, Rich Benigno, Galina Semy, Julie Cheng. Back row, left to right: George Afriyie, Steve Ogilvie.
The pharmacy has many initiatives to help ease the transition from inpatient to outpatient care. For instance, our “Transitions of Care” pharmacists consult patients with COPD and patients with heart failure on their medications in between doctor visits or before and after they are discharged. This practice helps to reduce our readmission rates. One of the pharmacy residents, Julia Cullen, is now expanding this program to the ED, where she can reach patients possibly even before they are admitted.
Verifying and filling prescriptions safely and quickly is an intricate process. For Pharmacy Week, the MSBI/Petrie Pharmacy gave tours of their space to employees so they could see this magic happening. Did you know that they verify around 2400 prescriptions a day?
As a part of Pharmacy Week, Chelsea and Union Square also hosted Medication Review Events where our community could speak to pharmacists about their medications.
Thanks to our wonderful pharmacists and pharmacy technicians for taking such great care of our patients and giving us the knowledge to do the same.
Touring the MSBI Pharmacy, Bob Bosakowski explains how prescriptions are verified and the safety precautions that are in place for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and all clinical professionals.
Chelsea pharmacy staff, front row, from left to right: Sheila Pierre, Yolanda Orengo Rodriguez, Walkidia Antomachi, Charlyn Reyes, Paul Dantas. Back row, from left to right: Mary Burke, Philip Villasurda.
This week we celebrate our Physician Assistants. Our PAs have taken on more responsibility recently and participate in more services than they did in the past. We have asked so much of them, and they have been exceptional partners and teammates. I am so thankful for their willingness to step in and cover on so many levels. They are truly integral to providing great patient care. We celebrated our PAs with a luncheon on Tuesday.
Kristen Rappisi, PA, following up with patients.
PAs Katrina De Los Reyes and Leslie Lynn with MSBI swag.
Julissa Velasquez, PA, documenting patient care.
Back row, left to right: Michael Berman, MD; Kar-Mun C. Woo, MD; Dahlia Rizk, DO, MPH; Barbara Barnett, MD; Bruce Davidson, PA-C; Werner Hoeflich, PA-C; Sarra Koumasidis, PA; Jonathan Meadows, PA; Christopher Kudrich, MS, RPA-C; Emily Warner, PA; Natalia Ibanez, PA student from Touro College doing her rotation at BI. Front Row, left to right: Heather Isola, PA; Charmaine Simms, PA; Heather Olson, PA; Anika Hessdorfer, PA; Kristen Rappissi, PA.
Recently one of our PAs, Juan Fernandez, returned to MSBI after trying a full-time job at another hospital for two months. Juan says that he decided to come back to MSBI because he missed the interaction with patients in the ED, working in the OR, and on the floors. He also missed our culture of family, where everyone knows everyone and people are always willing to provide a helping hand. Juan was born at Beth Israel and grew up in this neighborhood. We are so thrilled to have him back home.
