Forest Hills Nurse Retires After 40-Year Career: Reports

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — After working in a Forest Hills hospital for four decades, a nurse clocked out for the final time on Friday night to the applause of her colleagues, reported multiple sources.

Registered nurse Sylvana Fontana Rega, 62, worked at the Long Island Jewish Forest Hills hospital for 40 years, reported CBS New York.

Despite starting her career amid the AIDS epidemic, she still told the outlet that working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic was “unimaginable.”

“Every room had COVID on this floor, except one,” she told CBS.

Rega herself contracted COVID in April of last year, but was back on the floor of the hospital helping patients after two weeks of recovery.

The medical center’s nurse manager, Phyllis Prawzinsky, described Rega as ‘the epitome of a nurse. She never shies away from a challenge.”

Rega said that the field of nursing has changed since she first entered the profession, right after graduating from college.

“You’re part of a team,” she told ABC 7, noting that nurses used to be instructed to follow doctor’s orders, but are now respected as part of the team that discusses the patient’s “situation and treatment.”

Even though Rega walked out of the hospital after her final shift on Friday, she says she told CBS that she may return part time in the fall — after traveling and taking her first summer off since college.