Nursing career dedicated to helping others
Her children knew that Judy Recine’s career as a nursing assistant was more than just a job to her — that, in the words of her daughter Angela, “it was always a calling.”
“My mother loved her job as much as she loved her family,” said Matthew, at 35 the youngest of the three Recine children. “She loved to go to work — and had a tremendous passion for what she did.”
Recine, who retired at the end of May from the Jewish General Hospital after 41 years, “has helped tens of thousands of patients — two and even three generations of the same family,” he said.
The hospital has been an integral part of life for the Chambly native, who graduated from the one-year nursing assistants’ training program at the Jewish General in 1970. (Today nursing assistants, now known as licensed practical nurses, must complete an 1,800-hour post-high-school training program at professional training centres operated by several Quebec school boards and private institutions.)
Her first job was at the nowclosed Reddy Memorial Hospital; she joined the Jewish General in 1975 and for the first 20 years, worked on a float team. That meant working somewhere different every day she was at work. “I enjoyed doing that: It was never dull,” said Recine. In 1995, she joined the emergency department.
Valerie Schneidman, head nurse of the emergency department, called Recine “a warm and hardworking licensed practical nurse” who always provided “excellent comfort care to patients.”
Among Recine’s many responsibilities as part of the team that helps doctors and nurses make sure that everything that needs to get done gets done, she would help to make sure that the necessary diagnostic testing was done — and get “really close to the patients,” said Schneidman.
“If Judy saw something a patient needed, she had no worries going to a doctor or nurse to tell them; she wasn’t shy about voicing her opinion or concern to anyone on the team to help a patient,” she said.
And sometimes, she would help the orderlies stock shelves. “It was like her home . ... She did whatever needed doing: She was a real old-fashioned team player.”
Recine received this year’s Award of Excellence for Licensed Practice Nurse. Nominations are submitted to a hospital committee of nursing leadership and the award is based on merit. “I thought she was a deserving candidate,” said Schneidman, who nominated her.
It was at the Jewish General that Recine met the man she would marry — he was a patient — and, together, they raised their family in a home just a few blocks from the hospital. Matthew remembers being four years old and how, walking through the hospital cafeteria with his mother one day, staff members stopped her to say: “Thank you so much for this” or “Thank you for that.”
As a teenager, he suffered with severe migraines; he remembers meeting neurologists and other specialists at the hospital, “and the amount of respect my mother’s peers had for her always struck me.”
Said Angela: “My mom is very much the old style of nursing, very understanding and empathetic — but very no-nonsense.
“When we were little, she didn’t say ‘Oh, my poor babies’ when we hurt ourselves or didn’t feel well. She looked after us, but it was more ‘You’re taking a Tylenol and going to school.’ ”
Angela said her mother can be loud — and “that worked well in Emergency: You’re meeting all kinds of people and you need a lot of backbone. She is very, very strong ... take-charge kind of person and very level-headed.
“She is someone who knows what to do in an emergency. Once we were in Cape Cod on vacation. An elderly man had become confused and fallen; he was cut and bleeding. And we called, ‘Mom, you’ve got to come.’ She knew what to do right away . ... Even at 40, I know I can turn to her all the time.”
Judy Recine has observed many changes over the years. When she started to work, for instance, she wore a white uniform — “and you didn’t make it too short,” she recalled — and a cap. White nylons and white nursing shoes completed the outfit. When a head nurse wore a uniform with pants in 1971, it stood out. In time, everyone started to wear running shoes and scrubs or coloured uniforms. “I had butterflies all over one of my tops,” she said.
Often, said Recine, the work was physical. “You were constantly moving . ... The orderlies have muscles of Hercules.
“I saw what had to be done and I just went and did it. With the cutbacks, everyone is trying to put out fires and to do the best you can for the patients.”
These days, patients and family member are much more inclined to ask questions than they used to be, “which I think is great,” she said.
She said she decided to retire because “I have done my bit.”
She celebrated her 65th birthday in early June. Five years ago she was treated for cancer, which recurred two years ago. It was time, she said. “I didn’t lose my compassion. I still cared. But I wasn’t feeling the same. It was time to go. I didn’t have my heart in it anywhere.”
She and her husband like to spend long weekends at their chalet in the Laurentians. Still, she misses her colleagues and says she might do volunteer work in the fall.
“It is a loss for the department,” said Schneidman, “but I am glad for her that, after working for so many years, she can take the time and enjoy her family.”