STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- She’s gone from hospital halls, bed sides and operating rooms to an office role running the state’s largest nurses’ union, but Pat Kane says her first career has groomed her perfectly for this one.
“As an open-heart operating room nurse, you’re managing a much smaller environment, but you’re definitely managing a lot of things happening at the same time,’’ said Kane, a Westerleigh resident. “It’s a much different role, but being used to a fast-paced, very stressful environment gives you a lot of life skills that translate well into a position like this.’’
Kane, 60, was recently named executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, a union in which she’s served as treasurer for the past nine years. She initially juggled full-time nursing with the treasurer responsibilities, but in 2016 took union leave from her nursing job to focus full-time on the issues heating up at the time.
Passionate about nursing since she entered the field in 1983, Kane touts the wide variety of skills nurses need to possess -- from teaching skills to those of law enforcement. She’s even put out a fire in an operating room, she recalled with a laugh.
“I think nurses really can do anything,’’ Kane said. “All day long, nurses are solving complicated problems. They’re dealing with all kinds of people from all walks of life. We’re hands-on problem solvers. Critical thinkers. A lot of nurses don’t think of themselves this way, but I do.’’
The association comprises 43,000 members, including nurses at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, and Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton.
Kane, who grew up in Westerleigh, began her new role on Dec. 23, 2019, after having been voted in by the association’s board in June.
Through the decades as a nurse with varying responsibilities in various shifts, Kane has spent years of evenings engaged in the association’s work, talking about community issues, like Medicare, and often attending health committee meetings of the Island’s Community Boards.
In this 2017 file photo, Kane speaks during the Light the Shore vigil on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. (Staten Island Advance)Staff-Shot
She said she credits her predecessor, Jill Furillo, with moving the association forward, into a “real union,” one she says she hopes to advance even further.
A College of Staten Island graduate and a product of Susan Wagner High School, Kane was drawn to nursing at an early age, when, as a child, she volunteered with seniors in a nursing home.
As she matured, she thought it’d be a perfect career.
“I was really attracted to the idea of public health,’’ she said, which led her to her first nursing job at the former Bayley Seton Hospital. After a stint at the former Elizabeth General Medical Center in New Jersey, she found her home at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze.
Through the years, she always remained active in the Nurses’ Association, and she said she’s looking forward to representing rank-and-file nurses in her new role. She’s lucky, too, she said, because she gets great support from her husband, Paul, and her grown son, Michael.
“I’ve lived it, so I think I have a very deep sense of what it’s like,’’ she said, noting that technological advances continue to change the role of nurses. “We have more technology, and also more requirements. We’re keeping people alive longer and we’re really maintaining folks who, years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to keep alive.’’
On the business end, Kane said she hopes to see more organized nurses in New York state – which she explained still has thousands of non-union nurses. Downstate, the membership numbers are higher, she said.
“We’re at such a critical juncture,’’ she said, noting that education, training and staffing issues are paramount to union members. “The goals of our union are really all things that are going to bring patients better care.’’
Regulations protect patients, she said, but staff-to-patient ratio is the most important aspect of patient care -- and that still isn’t regulated. The Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act is expected to be introduced in Albany during this legislative session, she said.
Last year, the state Department of Health initiated a study on the implications of increasing staffing on cost and on patient outcomes. Results are still pending, Kane said.
“It’s not just about nurses,’’ she said of adequate staffing. “A lot of studies have shown that it does make a real difference. Complications are reduced. Readmissions after discharge are reduced. And it reduces burnout, keeping experienced nurses in the profession.’’
Staten Island residents’ lives will improve, she said, when staffing issues improve.
“We can really change our community by empowering them,” Kane said. “They’re great men and women from all countries, all races -- tons of folks who are really talented people. I really think we can heal New York.’’