NEW YORK NURSE: July/August 2007
Edmund JY Pajarillo recently presented a paper, Nursing Information Behavior in the Context of Help-seeking, at the annual conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science at McGill University, Montreal. Pajarillo’s paper focused on how nurses seek and use information with the mindset of validating, confirming, and gaining approval or consult. Pajarillo recommends further investigation of this perspective of nursing information behavior, as it differs from traditional electronic database-searching, article-chasing, and retrieval that is inherent in most information-seeking scenarios. The paper was part of a larger research project Pajarillo is conducting for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York Home Care. He is a past member of the NYSNA Board of Directors and teaches nursing informatics in the graduate nursing informatics program at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, N.Y. Pajarillo also has recently been appointed deputy executive director and chief nursing executive of the Health and Home Care Division of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.
Kieva Skinner, an ICU nurse at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, was featured in May in an annual tribute to nurses on Women’s Entertainment Television. In June she was honored at the 2007 Nursing Spectrum Excellence Awards gala for being a role model for the profession.
It all began for Skinner in 2005 when she was a student at the Long Island College Hospital School of Nursing. The former stay-at-home mom and administrative assistant was inspired to pursue a nursing career after seeing a full-page Johnson & Johnson ad. Janet Mackin, dean of the school of nursing, was impressed with Skinner’s ability to manage an active home life while maintaining grades that kept her at the top of her class. Mackin recommended Skinner as a speaker at the Johnson & Johnson Promise of Nursing gala in New York City that year, citing her “desire to learn, her compassion, and professionalism.” Skinner was one of just two nursing students to address the audience. “This has been wonderful,” Skinner said. “Maimonides Medical Center and my colleagues have been so supportive. These two years as a nurse have been challenging but nonetheless very rewarding. I would encourage all men and women to pursue a career in nursing if they’re interested. I love nursing! It’s the best career decision I’ve made in my life.”
Ruth Watson Lubic, NYSNA honorary member and the first nurse to receive a Fellowship award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, was featured recently in the cover article of the Washington Post Magazine. It described Lubic’s lifelong campaign to provide prenatal care, support services, and a comfortable, calm birthing environment for lower-income mothers. The article also reported that Lubic’s birthing center in Washington, D.C. is struggling to survive.
Lubic became a midwife in 1961 and in the mid-1970s opened the country’s first state-licensed birth facility in an Upper East Side townhouse. In 1988 she opened the Morris Heights Childbearing Center in the Bronx and provided prenatal care to hundreds of women who never had access to it before.
The 1993 MacArthur award allowed Lubic to open a birthing center in northeast Washington, D.C., a low-income area with one of the nation’s highest infant mortality rates. The DC Birth Center is staffed by six midwives and two nurse practitioners and has delivered more than 550 babies since it opened in 2000. Its future is threatened, however, by rising costs and falling donations. For more information, visit www.developingfamilies.org.
Mary Nancy Cordaro, a retired nurse and member of the NYSNA Leadership Institute, was featured in the May/June issue of The American Nurse, the bimonthly publication of the American Nurses Association. The story focused on generational differences among nurses. Cordaro, who was identified as a member of the pre-baby boom generation, graduated from nursing school in 1969 after working as an executive secretary and a professional photographer.
Cordaro believes nursing is much more difficult today, but acknowledges that each generation faces its own hurdles. This member of the so-called “silent” generation, seems anything but. She remains actively involved with the District 19 nurses association in Suffolk County, and is a regular and highly decorated attendee at NYSNA’s annual Convention. She is easily recognized by her scarf adorned with pins and memorabilia.