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Nenita or “Nitz” began her professional career as a registered nurse working mainly in operating rooms before coming to the Gamma Knife Center. She was a graduate nurse in 1977 and completed her B.S.N. (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) in 1979 in Manilla, her native land, Philippines. While in the Philippines, she was a charge nurse in the operating room for three years at Dr. Victor Potenciano Medical Center. After passing the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Schools’ examination in 1982, Nenita applied for a position at the Health and Hospitals Corporation in New York City to work in the United States. She obtained her Professional Nursing License from New York State in 1983 and worked as the head nurse of the Urology Department/Cysto Suite at Lincoln Medical Center in Bronx, New York. In 1989, she transferred to the operating room at then, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center; now the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. Here Nenita held the position as one of the staff members of the perioperative nursing in various services. Her specialty in the operating room was Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. In 1998, because of suspected latex sensitivity, Nenita moved to the Gamma Knife Center. In 2002, she wrote an article of her transforming nursing experience for the journal “Nursing Spectrum”. Ms. Nadera maintains her CNOR (Certified Nurse in the Operating Room) every five years through continuing education.
According to the majority of Gamma Knife Center patients, Nenita is very kind, compassionate, and understanding of their needs. Many grateful patients continuously send letters saying that Nenita has made “what could have been a frightening experience” a pleasant one.
Aside from assisting neuro surgeons in frame placement and assuring completeness of the set-up, Nenita works with the Gamma Knife Center nursing team to help patients overcome all daunting obstacles that hinder the success of the patient’s gamma knife experience (for example, claustrophobia in the MRI, fear of frame placement, fear of injections/needles, and anxiety over health issues/situations). She gives tours, answers questions, takes care of all the pre-gamma knife requirements before the day of the procedure, and does not leave the gamma knife suite without completing “what is supposed to be done” for the patients. Nenita personally calls patients after procedures are completed to make sure that they are doing well and finds great satisfaction in hearing that they are happy.
As three decades in professional nursing approached, Nenita decided to pursue her Master of Science in Nursing on Case Management with a functional concentration in Nursing Administration. She is very excited to finish the program in 2010. Nenita is a member of the Honor Society of Nursing/Sigma Theta Tau International.
Nenita truly believes that, with all her accumulated knowledge, her patients will benefit because “we put our patients first.”
