A Retirement Celebration to Remember
NewYork-Presbyterian colleagues showered nurse Deborah Acevedo with love and gratitude as she said goodbye to her home away from home for the last 45 years.
NewYork-Presbyterian had been a second home to nurse Deborah Acevedo for 45 years, and on her last day before her retirement, she was looking forward to a quiet goodbye dinner. Her colleagues, though, had bigger plans in mind. The team convinced Deborah to come to a conference room, where dozens of her team members surprised her with roses in their hands. As Deborah walked in, they cheered and thanked for her all her years of service. “When I turned the corner and saw all of my friends and colleagues standing there with roses, I was speechless,” said Deborah. “This was a really thrilling experience I will remember forever.” It was a fitting farewell to a nurse who had touched so many lives, and a moment to acknowledge the incredible impact she made over nearly half a century.
Ever since she can remember, Deborah wanted to be a nurse. From a very young age the Bronx native was inspired by her father’s experiences as a medic in the Korean War and a desire to give back to her community. “I wanted to bring excellent healthcare to my community, and I wanted to be one of the people to make it happen,” she says.
Deborah received her nursing degree from Columbia University’s School of Nursing, where she discovered a passion for neonatal care during her senior year of nursing school. As a student, she trained at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and was offered a full-time job in the same unit in 1979. Very quickly, NewYork-Presbyterian became family. “I loved what I did,” she recalls. “The doctors and the nurses were really partners in the care of the babies. There’s a great deal of respect, and I woke up every day wanting to go to work.”
One of Deborah’s proudest accomplishments as a NICU nurse was helpling to establish of the Cuddler Program at the NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in 2011. The program allows volunteers to comfort and soothe infants when their parents can’t be at their bedside.
After 34 years in the NICU, Deborah made a transition to become a Community Outreach Clinical Coordinator at the NewYork-Presbyterian Ambulatory Care Network, which focuses on providing easily accessible and affordable outpatient care to patients of all ages in their neighborhoods. “My favorite part of my job is meeting different people, hearing their story, and then helping them,” she says. While at the ACN, Deborah has also left her mark, creating many programs, including Tuesdays in Harlem, which brings nurses into the Bowery Mission women’s homeless shelter to cook and provide meals.
After more than four decades of dedicating herself to caring for patients and the community, Deborah is looking forward to spending more time with her husband, children, and grandchildren. “It is a bittersweet moment because I really love what I do,” she says.
“Debbie is so caring and empathetic,” says Davina Prabhu, vice president of community and population health at NewYork-Presbyterian. “She is always helping others learn and has made sure to share the knowledge she has gained over the course of her time here to spread her legacy with the rest of our team.”
Deborah’s advice for young nurses who are just beginning their careers: “Don’t be afraid of the difficulties, don’t get frustrated with the little things, and always keep the big picture in mind that you are making an impact on people’s lives in ways that no one else can.”