NEW YORK NURSE: December 2007
Adella Campbell-Eltantawy, a staff nurse on the Rapid Response Team at Maimonides Medical Center raised $1,000 to benefit women in the Congo in a walk/run on Roosevelt Island sponsored by Women for Women International.
Campbell-Eltantawy first learned about the organization through an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show that documented the rape and torture of Congolese women. Moved by that story and news footage of the stoning death of a 16-year old Iraqi girl, Campbell-Eltantawy pledged to become involved in helping women and children in need.
Women for Women International assists women in war-torn regions of the world by providing financial and emotional support, job skills, rights awareness, and education. In addition to participating in the walk/run with her 15-year old daughter, Nabila, Campbell-Eltantawy has adopted “sisters” in Afghanistan and Kosovo whom she sponsors on a monthly basis.
Originally from Scotland, Campbell-Eltantawy received nurse training at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and came to the U.S. in 1981. She completed her RN education in 1990 and has worked at Maimonides ever since. Also a supporter of Doctors Without Borders, the ASPCA, Oxfam, and Amnesty International, Campbell-Eltantawy says, “Once you’ve seen these things, you can’t pretend you don’t know about them.”
Ellen Brickman, director of the NYSNA Statewide Peer Assistance for Nurses (SPAN) Program, received the Impaired Practice/Peer Assistance award at the 31st annual conference of the International Nurses Society on Addictions (IntNSA).
The award is presented to an individual who works or volunteers in the area of impaired practice/peer assistance for nurses; has initiated or actively participated in local, state, regional, national, or international legislation; and has developed and implemented prevention or intervention programs for impaired practice/peer assistance.
Brickman also was re-elected president of the National Organization of Alternative Programs (NOAP) at its annual conference in Washington, D.C. Brickman came to NYSNA in 2000 as an assistant director for peer assistance and became director of the newly-formed SPAN Program several months later.
Shirley Carrenard, an ICU nurse at Maimonides Medical Center, recently returned from a one-week surgical mission to Samana, a remote area of the Dominican Republic. Carrenard was part of a Northeast Mission of Hope medical team of nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, nurse anesthetists, and technicians.
The team travels twice a year to perform operations such as circumcisions, cataract surgery, hernia repairs, hysterectomies, and cholycystectomies. They brought along all the supplies, machinery, and instruments required for an operating room. In this case, they even took along a translator. “The whole OR went!” said Carrenard.
She and her team were soon challenged by lack of access to water and the need to manually ventilate patients. The facility’s only respirator was considered to “use too much energy” by Dominican staff. Carrenard’s critical care background allowed her to assist in pre-op procedures, recovery, and “for once, experience what it’s like to be a circulating nurse.”
Carrenard is already making plans to volunteer for the group’s next mission to Manila in the Philippines. “I’d recommend it to anyone; the people are so grateful. And we’re recruiting now!”