Blog -- An inside look at the opportunities and experiences found in the classroom and out.

Louisa Morrison provides exceptional care at Mt. Sinai Hospital to New York congressman though unaware of his position of importance

When he was discharged, the patient returned to personally thank Louisa Morrison, Certified Nursing Assistant/Nurse Technician, and to express how very much her kindness had meant to him during his stay at Mt. Sinai Hospital. All she had done, she explained humbly, was try to do her best.

Louisa, an Allen School Jamaica campus graduate, has been working at Mt. Sinai of Queens since her graduation in 2005. She had no way of knowing that this particular patient was a prominent New York congressman. It would not have mattered.

Nor did Louisa know that her name had been featured in a front page article in the hospital’s nursing department newsletter. A co-worker pointed out the article that announced that Louisa had received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for the excellent care she had provided to a patient. Subsequent hand-written notes of acknowledgement were given to her from the Vice President of Nursing and the Executive Director of the hospital.

Allen School administration and faculty noted with admiration Louisa’s return to campus in January 2008 for twelve successive six-hour Saturday classes in Phlebotomy and EKG in order to add Nurse Tech to her credentials. While she was completing the Nurse Tech program, the special congressional recognition was awarded.

Married for 12 years to Scott Morrison, an RN whom she met at the ER of St. John’s Hospital in Queens while she was having an asthma attack, Louisa credits her husband’s “exceptional dedication and skill,” the mentoring of her nurse manager at Mt. Sinai, another RN, and her training at Allen School, with her decision to become an RN herself. She is now taking the prerequisites for the RN program.

“I am so very grateful to my wonderful manager at Mt. Sinai, Anne Pisciotta,” said Louisa. “She is an angel without wings, so very gentle. She always finds a way to make even difficult people feel good and happy and that is what I learned from her. My inspiration comes from her, my husband and from my very special teachers at Allen School, especially Miss Persaud.”

Allen School is proud of Louisa Morrison and honored to have played a part in launching the career of an individual whose respect for and devotion to patients comes from a true place in her heart, unrelated to their status or station in life.

The Speed Staffing System™ lives up to its reputation for S-P-E-E-D!

Brooklyn Medical Assistant graduate Jeanette Alicea received three interview requests on the Speed Staffing System™, one each week for three consecutive weeks. It was a hectic time. She found herself rushing from one medical facility to another for interviews.

The job Jeanette ultimately took was for two extremely busy pediatricians, Drs. Dupiton and Grant, in Cambria Heights, Queens, where she has the opportunity to use her bi-lingual English/Spanish skills with those patients who prefer to speak Spanish.

“I am getting to put to use what I learned at Allen School,” Jeanette said. She is working with two medical assistants who have been there for an extended period of time and she feels that she is handling herself well, “learning new things every single day.”

“The Speed Staffing System™ was really great. It helped me to land my first job,” Jeanette said, “I didn’t have to wait very long to get called. It was so quick.” She explained that the process of preparing to make a sixty-second statement on the Speed Staffing System™ and putting together the information for an individual online page was integral to preparing her well for interviews.

“During the interview for the job I got, the doctor told me that she really liked what was written about me,” said Jeanette. “The fact that she saw [on the Speed Staffing profile page] that I had worked at Head Start was of interest to her and when I came in, she mentioned that. She also knew who to expect when I arrived – because of my photo!”

“On another interview,” Jeanette said, “the doctor mentioned about my perfect attendance. He saw that on my profile page.”

Summing up her entire experience with Allen School, Jeanette said, “It was great- the instructors, the staff, Ms Jackson, Speed Staffing – it was actually fabulous!”

Transfused at birth in 1983 with HIV-contaminated blood, Michael, the newborn preemie, would have his life cut short at the age of fifteen by actions taken within hours of being born. The transfusions were provided to the infant without parental authorization for a condition called Necrotizing Enterocolitis, a gastrointestinal disease that mostly affects premature infants and causes destruction of the bowel.

Fatefully, the transfusions transmitted to the tiny new baby would later be found to be the HIV virus, although the virus at that early date had not yet been named, nor had laws regulating transfusions been implemented. There were definitely laws in place, however, that required parental authorization prior to transfusing a minor!

EMELINDA AND SON MICHAEL

During the last three weeks of Michael’s short life, the medical profession redeemed itself in his mother Emelinda Jackson’s eyes, after fifteen years of her having harbored bitter and intense hatred for doctors, nurses and anyone remotely connected to the industry. Jackson, a career professional in the corporate world, gave up a six year position as the right hand to Smith Barney’s VP of Investments, preceded by 7.5 years negotiating guest rooms for the international market of Marriott Corporation, to be able to stay at home to care for her only son during the last two years of his life. Emelinda was inconsolable about Michael’s suffering and her rage at everything and anything medical was the outcome.

It was not until the final three weeks of Michael’s short life, however, that the passion of Emelinda’s anger was transformed into the passion of what would turn out to be her real career purpose: assisting medical support personnel to find their own careers.

Sharda, a certified nursing assistant, came to Emelinda through the Visiting Nurse Service during the last five weeks of Michael’s life. Emelinda was instantly hostile to her and told her straight from the beginning that she wasn’t welcome in the house. Sharda peacefully told Emelinda repeatedly, “I’m just here to help you…” and for almost two weeks, Emelinda refused to talk to her. The complete selflessness of the CNA who – with three small children of her own for whom she paid childcare while remaining at Michael’s side – insisted on staying overnight for the entire last three weeks of his life. It was there and then that the last two caregivers at Michael’s bedside, Emelinda and her angel CNA, Sharda, bonded in what would turn out to be a lifelong friendship.

As if by some divine plan, just as Michael passed on, Emelinda was recruited by Allen School for the position of Placement Director. Her sales background and experience dealing with multi-cultural individuals melded with the credentials required by the school. Emelinda was asked to consider coming in and setting up an entirely new placement department to meet the ever-exploding numbers of job requests coming in from medical facilities. Newfound respect for medical support personnel – and a pressing awareness of the need to do ever more meaningful work to honor Michael’s memory – impacted on Emelinda’s decision to take the position nine years ago.

Through the professionalism, selflessness and empathy of a dedicated CNA, Michael’s life journey provided impetus and meaning to what would become his mother’s personal commitment to medical career school graduates. Thousands of students have gone on to careers as medical support personnel in facilities all over the country as a result of the placement assistance provided by Emelinda Jackson.

Michael’s spirit remains close at heart at every moment at the Allen School as his mother, Emelinda Jackson, transcending the physical, sees in each graduate loving reflections of her own child, fulfilling Michael’s legacy by helping each graduate to fulfill their own.