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Semester breaks don’t matter much to Dr. Nina Geatrakas anymore.
They did when Geatrakas, a radiology department resident physician at Syracuse’s Upstate Medical University, was an UMU student. Now she works during those breaks.
Sometimes she works nights, taking the 12-hour overnight shift on a rotating schedule with the department’s 23 other resident physicians. Since the department provides 24-hour radiology coverage, Geatrakas also finds herself working on weekends and holidays.
“You get used to it,” Geatrakas, an UMU Chapter member, said of her irregular work schedule. “That’s just part of my job. Hospitals don’t shut down. Someone has to be here.”
If UUP is the union that makes SUNY work, thousands of UUPers like Geatrakas keep SUNY going around the clock, filling vital roles necessary for the health, safety and welfare of hospital patients and their families, students and their families, and their communities.
It’s predominately those employed at one of SUNY’s three teaching hospitals who regularly work during winter, spring and summer breaks. They pull second and third shifts and weekends, and even cut vacations short if needed to answer emergencies and solve situations that require their expertise.
Josheila Crandall, a Brooklyn HSC member and administrator of the hospital’s department of medicine, came in—twice—during her vacation over the recent winter holidays.
Crandall, who oversees one of the hospital’s largest departments, took her vacation the week after Christmas. But she was called in, once to address problems regarding the hospital’s Center for Study of Sleep Disorders, and again to deal with patient relations issues.
She also worked a number of Saturdays last spring, overseeing the hospital’s new Saturday non-invasive cardiology testing service.
“I came in and I helped move the patients around, doing patient escorts,” said Crandall, a UUP delegate who served on several statewide union committees, including co-chair of the Membership Committee. “You just want to pitch in where you’re needed.”
Michael Behun routinely works through semester breaks as University at Buffalo’s officer in charge of computer compliance. Behun, a UUP delegate and Buffalo Center Chapter member, is a computer detective of sorts, logging onto e-mail and Internet accounts of students and staff to ensure campus network computers are being used properly.
He also handles campus police requests to help track down missing persons or people who need help. The data Behun uncovers can help save lives.
“In one case, police questioned the parents and roommate of a student who was missing, but they didn’t know where he was,” said Behun. “We went into the (student’s) account and we found he had another group of friends who knew where he was.”
Brooklyn HSCer Edison Bond Jr. works almost every weekend, covering the overnight shift as the hospital’s chief administrator on duty.
Bond works from midnight to 8 a.m. handling the hospital’s administrative and operations responsibilities. That can mean making sure emergency room patients get timely medical care, securing beds for admitted patients, or dealing with medical and social care issues of homeless people who come in off the street.
“Last weekend we had someone who wanted to sign out of the hospital against medical advice,” said Bond, a UUP Executive Board member. “It’s 4 a.m. and they want to walk out of the Intensive Care Unit. Things can get very complicated.”
Bond’s day job, as Brooklyn HSC’s campus director of patient relations, holds the same challenges, which sometimes require him to work several hours after his shift ends.
His expertise helped save the life of a girl formerly from Brooklyn who was seriously injured in a car accident hundreds of miles away in Barbados. In March 2008, Bond was instrumental in securing care at Brooklyn HSC for 8-year-old Charelle Carroll, an American citizen who moved to Barbados after her mother died.
Bond, who learned of Carroll through a local minister, took her case through the proper channels, eventually presenting it to hospital administrators, who agreed to admit her. With help from Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Yvette Clark, Carroll was flown to the hospital for care.
“She was discharged after more than two months and went to a rehabilitation facility,” said Bond. “She came back to visit recently and she was walking and talking. It’s one of those good stories.”
— Michael Lisi