PITTSFIELD, Mass. — As part of Employee Appreciation Month in May, Berkshire Health Systems (BHS) recognized seven employees with annual CARE Awards and two Providers of the Year honors.
CARE Awards celebrate the health system's core values of Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Excellence, and employees who were honored work across the system at Berkshire Medical Center, Fairview Hospital, North Adams Regional Hospital, and BMC and Fairview Provider Practices.
Providers of the Year Honors
Providers of the Year were Maribeth Pomerantz, Certified Nurse Midwife at Berkshire OBGYN of BMC, and Adam Gicewicz, MD, a pediatrician at Berkshire Health Pediatrics.
Pomerantz was recognized for the personalized care she provides to expectant mothers. Her co-workers said, "There are many examples of her commitment to individual patients. She doesn't hesitate to add them to her schedule so that they can have a timely visit. She truly goes over the top in support of her patients and their families."
Dr. Gicewicz was cited for his ability to "ease the natural anxiety that any child must have when going to the doctor. One thing Dr. Gicewicz does is wear a multitude of different colored sneakers, and all the children love this. He understands all the different age groups associated with our practice and can relate to them on a level that is comfortable for them, making their visit that much better for both patient and parents."
CARE Award Winners
Ellen Beckwith, RN, is a Charge Nurse at Fairview Hospital and she was lauded by colleagues, who said, "Ellen consistently demonstrates exceptional compassion and dedication in patient care. I have had the privilege to witness Ellen having a profound impact on patients and colleagues. Ellen possesses the unique ability to provide not only outstanding clinical care but also emotional support that truly makes a difference in the lives of patients and their families."
Frank Bentz is the Environmental Services Supervisor at the Hillcrest Campus of BMC. His team said, "With an extraordinary 36-year career in Environmental Services, Frank has exemplified what it means to be a committed, ethical, dependable, and hardworking team member. Frank is someone you would want in your foxhole. Throughout his long tenure at BHS, Frank has consistently upheld the highest standards of cleanliness, customer service, and safety."
Richard "Ricky" Cyrulik, Environmental Services Specialist, North Adams Regional Hospital, "is a seasoned team member in the EVS department at NARH who has exemplified extraordinary contributions to the team. He is consistently willing to help out anywhere in the hospital. Ricky always responds as quickly as he can with a positive attitude. Ricky was assigned to the emergency department and after one week of being there I heard from multiple staff members that they are so appreciative that he is there."
Noel Henebury, Recruiter, BHS Human Resources, was honored for how she interacts with those she is recruiting. "Noel is also highly invested in the people she encounters in our Talent Acquisition Program. She attends every RN pinning ceremony and when her new hires start, she makes it a point to meet with them when they are filling out paperwork and meets them at their orientation. Her enthusiasm for her tasks goes beyond a focus on those she is recruiting. She truly feels that recruiters change people's lives by hiring them to work here."
Yvette Losaw, RN, 5 West Surgical/Ortho, Berkshire Medical Center, was recognized for her patient-centered care. "She takes charge in difficult situations in a calm, confident manner, with just the right amount of humor. Yvette advocates for her patients to make sure that they get the care that they need. She has outstanding clinical skills. I would want her to be my nurse or my loved one's nurse, if we ever needed one."
Gwen McCarroll, Information Technology Engineer, BHS Information Technology, recognized for being "hardworking, collaborative, supportive and a team player. She can decipher report request needs with ease and patience. She continues to work tirelessly to ensure that users have what they need, and data is accurate."
Randy Wallingford, RN, Behavioral Health, Berkshire Medical Center, was honored for his compassionate approach to his patients. "It is unfathomable to attempt to consider the number of lives Randy has touched, the number of souls he has had a hand in healing through the years. His commitment to inclusive and excellent patient care, and to treating everyone around him with kindness and respect has been remarkably enduring and inspiring."
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Youth For The Future: Adwita Arunkumar
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Williams Elementary School fourth-grader Adwita Arunkumar has been selected as our April Youth for the Future for her mentoring of a younger child.
Youth for the Future is a 12-month series that honors young individuals that have made an impact on their community. This year's sponsor is Patriot Car Wash. Nominate a youth here.
Adwita has cortical visual impairment; she has been working with her teacher, Lynn Shortis, and her, paraprofessional Nadine Henner.
"My journey with CVI means that I learned in a different way. I work hard every day with Miss Henner and Miss Lynn, to show how smart I am," she said.
"Adwita is a remarkable student. She's a remarkable child. She has, as she shared, cortical visual impairment, which is a brain-based visual processing disorder, which means the information coming in through the eyes is interfered with somewhere along the pathways, and we never quite know what's being interpreted and how and how it's being seen," said Shortis.
"So she has a lot of accommodations and specialized instruction to help her learn."
Recently Adwita has chosen to mentor 4-year-old Cayden Ziemba, who is also visually impaired.
"I decided to be a mentor to Cayden so that she can learn some new things. I teach her how to walk with the cane, with the diagonal and tap technique, I am teaching her Braille," she said. "I enjoy spending time with Cayden, playing games and being a good role model."
Shortis said the mentoring opportunity came up when Cayden was entering preschool at Williams, and they introduced her to Adwita.
"Adwita works really, really hard academically. She's very smart, but there are a lot of challenges in that, because of the way that it's so visual and she's a natural. She's just, it's automatic," Shortis said. "It's kind of like a switch is turned on and she becomes this extremely confident and proud person in this teacher role."
Adwita also has been helping Cayden on how to use her cane on the bus and became a mentor in a unexpected ways.
"Immediately at the start of this year, she would meet Cayden at the bus. She has taught Cayden how to use her cane to go down the bus stairs. Again, Adwita learned that skill, so it wasn't something I had to say to her, this is what you need to have Cayden do. She just automatically picked that up and transferred that information," said Shortis. "Cayden is now going down the bus step steps independently with her cane. And then she really works hard with Adwita in traveling through the hallways, Adwita leads her to her class every morning, helps her put her things away and get ready for her morning."
Adwita said she hopes Cayden can feel excited about school and that other students can feel good about themselves as well.
"I want them to know that Braille is cool to learn. You can feel the bumpiness with your fingers. I want people to know how you can still learn if your brain works differently sometimes. I need to have a lot of patience working with a 3-year-old. I need to be creative and energized," she said.
She hopes to one day take her mentoring skills to the head of the class as a teacher.
"I want to become a teacher and teach other students when I grow up. I might want to teach math, because I am great at it," she said. "I also want to teach others about CVI. CVI doesn't stop me from being able to do anything I want to. I want students to not feel stressed out and know that they can do anything they want by working hard and persevering."
Her one-to-one paraprofessional said she likes seeing the bond that has grown between the two girls, and can picture Adwita being a teacher one day.
"I do see her in the future being a teacher because of her patience, understanding and just natural-born instinctive skills on how to work with young children," Henner said.
Shortis also said their bond is quite special and their relationship has helped to bring out the confidence in each other.
"The beauty of it, there's just something about it their bond is, I don't even really have a word to describe the bond that the two of them have. I think they share something in common, that they're both visually impaired, and regardless of the fact that their visual impairment differs and the you know the cause of it differs," she said.
"They can relate. And they both have the cane. They're both learning some Braille. But there's something else that's there that just the two of them connected immediately, and you see it. You just you see it in their overall relationship."
Williams Elementary School fourth-grader Adwita Arunkumar has been selected as our April Youth for the Future for her mentoring of a younger child. click for more
Berkshire Community College has selected Dean of Nursing, Health and Wellness Lori Moon as the keynote speaker for commencement exercises sy 4:30 p.m. on Friday, May 29, at Tanglewood in Lenox. click for more
The gymnasium of the Boys and Girls Club was full of laughter, music, dancing, and cheer as multiple generations celebrated the hard work of 413 Cheer and Taconic High School cheerleaders with a fundraiser and showcase. click for more
Over the last month or so, the district has considered whether to retire the open concept, community school at the end of the school year.
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On Tuesday, the college highlighted this "step towards technological modernization" that was made possible by a $133,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. click for more