REPORT: October/November 2006

In the News

Edmund Pajarillo, a regional compliance specialist for the Queens office of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York Home Care, recently presented two research papers at the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO) conference at the University of Vienna, Austria. In “A qualitative research on the use of knowledge organization in nursing information behavior,” Pajarillo explored the knowledge organization steps and processes used by nurses and how these steps relate to the nursing process and their information behavior. In “A classification scheme to determine medical necessity: A knowledge organization global learning application,” he documented the three-tier mental classificatory process and ontological representation that home care nurses use to qualify clients for home care. Pajarillo is a former member of the NYSNA Board of Directors and is president-elect of the New York Counties Registered Nurses Association. He serves on the American Nurses Association House of Delegates, the board of Nurses House, Inc., and is an adjunct faculty member at Molloy College in Rockville Centre.

Hyacinth Martin, a professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, has authored her first book, Clinical Decision Making: Case Studies in Pharmacology. The book, published by Thomson Delmar Learning, is a systematic, application-based resource containing 40 pharmacology case histories and questions based on real-life client situations. In writing the book, Martin drew upon her 30 years of experience as an RN and 17 years of teaching in LPN certificate, associate, and baccalaureate degree programs for the City University of New York. In 2005, Martin was honored with an Outstanding Community Service award from her local chapter of the Caribbean American Nurses Association. She and her husband sponsor a rural school in Jamaica, West Indies, and three children in Ghana. She helped develop a church-based mentoring program for nursing students in the Philippines. Regardless of her very full schedule, she hopes to contribute further to academic nursing literature.

Kathleen Nowak, a NYSNA nursing representative was featured in the Journal News, a daily newspaper covering the lower Hudson Valley. The article described how Kathy and her husband, Joseph, have raised eight children – four of their own and four adopted –with disabilities ranging from hearing loss to dyslexia to Down syndrome. The couple’s seven–bedroom house also has been home to 35 foster children over the years. As a young nurse trainee, Kathy cared for an “exquisite” baby boy with Down syndrome at Queens General Hospital, and made a promise to help other children like him. Knowing they always wanted a large family, the Nowaks sought children that no one else appeared to want. Nowak was quoted in the article as saying, “To me it’s just a normal family, it’s just not overwhelming.” A family friend commented, “I don’t think she thinks there is anything exceptional about how she mothers her children. She is a mother. She has children. That’s it. Amen.”

Anne Cardinale, who currently works at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, has accepted an appointment as Director of the Office for the Aging and Adult Services for Ulster County. She believes she is the first registered nurse to hold this position. Cardinale has had a “passion” for caring for the elderly since her days in nursing school. She created a highly successful geriatric service line at Benedictine that led to her appointment in October 2006. Cardinale notes that years ago she served as an intern under Patricia Pine, who at the time directed the Ulster County Office for the Aging. They remained close, even after Pine moved on to direct the New York State Office for the Aging. Pine died recently of cancer, and Cardinale sees “a closing of the circle” in her appointment to her mentor’s former position. Cardinale is the former president of NYSNA District 11 and chair of the NYSNA Gerontological Nursing Clinical Practice Unit. She will start her new job in January.