Gina Bradshaw, Office Manager for Dr. Noel Karp, NYU Medical Center's Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery department partnered with ACCESS Nursing Priviate Duty, to discuss standards of nursing and post operative care for the clients who undergo; face, browl, eyelid lifts, abdominoplasty, and latissimus dorsi flaps. The lecture followed an extensive Q&A session which was very well received. Click photo to enlarge.


Bradshaw, Office Manager, from Dr. Noel Karp's office, to lead an in-service on “First Class Care for the Plastic Surgical Client.” Gina provided our PD RNs and LPN’s with insightful information on the surgical services provided by Dr. Karp and his surgical team, as well as the standard of care expected postoperatively. Overall, we had 40 RNs and LPN’s participate... a great response, in our opinion! Many of our nurses do not typically deal with "plastics" patients, so they benefited from the information given.
Our second presenter, Private Duty RN of the Year - Mary Chambers, shared her own personal “Little things that make a BIG difference,” providing “First Class Care” to the post-operative Orthopedic client. Mary shared ideas of how she handles clients of diverse cultural backgrounds. Mary's discussion was well received by her peers. To "wrap up" the in-service, the Clinical Service Directors lead a Q&A forum where all participants added their own thoughts and ideas of the “little things that make a big difference.”

First Class Care

Recently, New York University’s’ Plastics Division has embraced Access Nursing Services to provide Private Duty services to its Plastic and Reconstructive client population at NYU Medical Center. This past Tuesday, April 4, 2006, from 10am – 1pm, in an effort to help promote the new service line, ACCESS Nursing Services invited Gina

Summary of “Little things that make a BIG difference":

  1. Be aware of your smile-it’s a facelift everyone can afford to give! (and clients LOVE IT)
  2. Be sensitive to the client’s phase of recuperation and gauge your interventions appropriately.
  3. Anticipate client’s needs before they even ask for something they themselves don’t even know that they need yet
  4. Don’t be afraid to ask “What do you need?” “What do you like?”
  5. Remain flexible with your delivery of care within the realm of safety first for all clients
  6. Act as liaison for the client with the Dietary, Social Services, Housekeeping, RN and MD staff
  7. Allow the patient to have a “sense of control” while in the hospital, to the extent they can
  8. Be aware of your own body language, non verbal gestures
  9. Taking good care of how YOU the caregiver look, (neat, clean, uniform, shoes, short nails etc) reassures and supplies confidence in the client how you are going to take care of them!
  10. If possible, take the “dining” experience to the next level at a clients’ bedside. Use of linen napkin as a “serving tray,” use of a flower neatly placed on their
    Dining tray can lift a client’s spirits and take the “hospital taste” out of the experience
  11. Offer to bring the daily paper (NY Times, NY Post or Daily News) to the client .
  12. Reinforce discharge planning to client/family consistent with RN/MD discharge plans
  13. Don’t assume anything about any client.
  14. Be mindful and respectful of cultural diversity, it’s all around us!
  15. Be YOU!

Finally, our day ended with a wonderful luncheon and the raffling of a Trip for 2 to Palm Coast, Florida. The grand prize winner was, Doris Meade, PD RN, for 12 years, at Lenox Hill Hospital. It was an excellent event and the feedback was extremely positive. Many of our nurses loved the content discussed and those who had never been to 40th street office, commented on the large space and clinical simulation lab, through which all of our caregivers return for competency testing & teaching. It was a great time for seeing old friends and networking with new ones. We look forward to many more events such as these in the near future!


Attendance to "1st Class Care" was standing room only! The nurses verbalized an extremely positive response to the class and requested more classes as a suggestion on their program evaluations. Click photo to enlarge.


From left to right: Hakkyung Lee-Kovacs, RN CSD, Marcia Jones George, RN Educator, Winner Doris Meade, RN, Johanna Pagan Veith, RN, Celia Thompson, RN CSD, Marie LoGuercio, RN CSD. Click photo to enlarge.