NEW YORK NURSE: June 2007
by Rolando Tomas Infante
Isabel Cheren has seen many aspects of nursing – she’s been a staff nurse, a corporate-level nurse manager, and a nurse practitioner. In every role, she’s been an inspiration for her colleagues.
As a member of the Employee Health Services team at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, Cheren conducts orientations for new employees, including information on preventing exposure to communicable diseases and other safety procedures. For her, it is a unique opportunity to combine direct care and nursing education in service to her fellow nurses.
A self-described “true Bronx girl,” Cheren was visualizing a career in social work when as a teenager she volunteered her time at the Riverdale Mental Health Center in the northwest Bronx. Her aspirations changed, however, when she was captivated by a local newspaper article on a new nursing program at Lehman College that focused on nurse practitioners.
While at Lehman, Cheren heard a presentation by Claire Fagin, the legendary nurse leader who at the time was chair of the College’s nursing department. Fagin’s insight helped Cheren realize her own calling as a holistic nurse practitioner, which would blend her own societal responsibilities with the professionalism of nursing.
“From my instructors at Lehman, I gained a greater appreciation for nursing and teaching,” said Cheren. “A nurse takes a holistic approach with every patient and a nurse becomes that trusted confidante to the patient as they enter the unfamiliar surroundings of a hospital setting.”
After graduating magna cum laude from Lehman in 1975, Cheren started work at the Montefiore Medical Center affiliate, Morrisania City Hospital, which closed within a year. Cheren and her fellow nurses were transferred to another Montefiore affiliate, North Central Bronx Hospital (NCB). This experience was her first involvement in labor relations in a dispute over the contract language concerning the successor clause and the transferability of nurses to NCB.
Cheren spent eight years in Employee Health Services at NCB. In 1985 she earned a master’s degree in public health at Columbia University School of Public Health. That same year, Montefiore took notice of Cheren’s involvement in labor relations and her idea of the “Montefiore Medical Center nurse.” The concept included the creation of a nursing database that allowed nurses to transfer within Montefiore’s multiple sites without any loss of benefits.
This innovative thinking prompted Montefiore to offer Cheren the position of special assistant to the chairman of nursing and vice president of human resources. She later became director of human resources-labor and employee relations at the corporate level, serving in this capacity until 1988. Cheren said it was an unprecedented move for a nurse practitioner, who had been on the opposite side of the bargaining table, to assume the managerial role for labor relations.
“I took the opportunity to have what I believe was a tremendous impact in nurse-management relations,” she said.
“I used my tenure in management to make the work environment more conducive for nurses and to bring to management a ‘nursing’ perspective.”
After leaving Montefiore, Cheren served as the director of human resources for five years at another healthcare facility. But despite her success at the management level, she missed nursing practice. In 1994 she accepted the position at Bronx-Lebanon, where she and two other nurse practitioners make up the Employee Health Services team.
“When new employees come into this office, I make sure that they don’t leave without a clear understanding of the safety precautions they need to follow for patients and themselves,” she said.
Cheren cited the example of a patient care technician (PCT), who had been recently diagnosed with diabetes. The PCT had a diet to follow that required her to travel to downtown Manhattan and shop at an expensive organic whole-foods market. Cheren was aghast. She sat down with the PCT and crafted a dietary plan that was realistic, local, and inexpensive.
“I have never seen a better employee health service than at Bronx-Leb,” said Richard Hernandez, former NYSNA nursing representative. “Isabel has done an amazing job at the hospital and her colleagues value her dedication.”
“Nursing attracts a certain type of person who loves teaching health prevention and displays loyalty to the patient,” said Cheren. “Registered nurses really know all aspects of the healthcare needs of their patients. Our input benefits not only the patient, but the hospital as well. Our influence is boundless, within the hospital setting or even the halls of Congress. We can go anywhere, into any discipline, and have success. There is nothing you can’t do as a nurse.”