Nurse leaders from Silverstein 12 over the years
In 1982, Betty Ann Boczar, MS, BSN, RN, joined the 12th floor of Silverstein Pavilion at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) as a new bedside nurse. She stayed for 18 years, the last 10 as assistant nurse manager, and it was there that Boczar, now the nursing director of Regulatory Compliance, cultivated a nursing practice built on the fundamentals of patient care, relationships with other disciplines, and strong professional partnerships with her nursing colleagues.
Joyce Beer, BSN, RN, also started her nursing career on Silverstein 12, in 1979, the year after the surgical unit opened. Many things were different in those days: Wall-to-wall carpet covered the floors, smoking was permitted, and nurses – in addition to the standard duties – also polished patients’ nails, washed their hair, and mixed their medications.
While many things on Silverstein 12 changed over the years, Beer, who recently moved to the emergency surgery service on Rhoads 6, said one thing never did: the camaraderie among the staff and their devotion to patients.
Beer and Boczar joined dozens of Silverstein 12 alumni, as well as hospital leaders, for a “decommission” celebration in November to mark the unit’s closure after four decades of surgical patient care. As part of reconfigurations at HUP Main that are continuing through early 2023, patients and staff were reassigned from Silverstein 12, by surgical specialty, to Rhoads 4, 6, and 7. Once the work is complete, HUP Main will have all private patient care rooms with surgical and the majority of the medical units grouped according to patient populations.
Silverstein 12 was the second unit to open in the Silverstein building in 1978, after Critical Care, and the first medical unit outside of the intensive care unit to have Telemetry (continuous cardiac monitoring) for patients. It was the largest surgical unit at HUP, serving vascular, gastrointestinal, post-bariatric, and trauma surgery patients over the years. Nurses often said of Silverstein 12, as in Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.”
Attendees at the Silverstein 12 celebration included Mauri Sullivan, MSN, RN, now HUP’s administrative director for Population Management; Aliza Narva, JD, MSN, RN, the hospital’s first director of Ethics; clinical nurse specialist Bridget Major-Joynes, MSN, RN; the unit’s last nurse manager, Donna Escosio, MSN, RN, CNL, and its first, Martie McCartney, RN, who served 40 years at HUP as a nursing manager and came in from Skippack Township for the celebration.
“When I see the people who started on Silverstein 12 as very young nurses, and how they’ve grown professionally and personally ... it’s very emotional,” McCartney told the group gathered. “You’ll always have a soft spot in my heart, that’s for sure.”