Josefina Santiago

Delivered home care services and personal assistance to a blind and autistic middle-aged male with disabilities.

Assisted in activities of daily living, including mobility and transportation support.

Prepared nutritious meals to meet dietary needs.

Administered prescribed medications to ensure health compliance.

Provided emotional support and advocacy to enhance quality of life and reduce isolation.

A Registered Nurse (RN) specializing in mental health within a correctional facility operates at the unique intersection of healthcare, psychiatry, and public safety. Responsible for delivering comprehensive psychiatric and medical care to incarcerated individuals while strictly adhering to institutional security protocols.

Psychiatric Treatment and Medication Management

• Medication Administration: Dispensing and closely monitoring the compliance of daily psychotropic medications and documenting reactions.
• Oversight and Coordination: Supervising the medication distribution channels handled alongside correctional officers to prevent medication hoarding or diversion.
• Therapeutic Interventions: Supporting behavioral health needs by facilitating brief counseling, crisis stabilization, and cognitive-behavioral therapies. Emergency Response and Crisis Intervention
• De-escalation: Utilizing therapeutic communication to defuse acute behavioral outbursts, psychotic episodes, or emotional distress.
• Medical Emergencies: Responding rapidly to critical codes within the facility, such as acute drug overdoses, severe self-harm incidents, or physical trauma.
• Triage Care: Operating autonomously under pressure to decide whether an inmate requires isolation, immediate psychiatric housing, or transfer to an external hospital. Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Patient Advocacy
• Team Synergy: Partnering with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and primary care physicians to manage complex, co-occurring chronic illnesses.
• Security Coordination: Collaborating closely with correctional officers to balance patient care plans without compromising facility safety protocols.
• Human Rights Advocacy: Serving as a vital advocate for humane treatment, ensuring inmates have access to necessary medical resources, proper hygiene, and therapeutic environments. Professional Constraints and Boundaries
• Separation of Roles: Maintaining absolute clinical boundaries by refraining from taking on punitive custodial duties, such as conducting body searches or disciplinary restraints for security purposes.
• Documentation Accuracy: Logging strict, confidential, and detailed progress notes within Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems to ensure legal compliance and continuity of care upon an inmate's release

Provides highly specialized, continuous care for critically ill patients with life-threatening neurological conditions like strokes, traumatic brain injuries, brain tumors, and spinal cord trauma.

Core role is to prevent secondary brain injury through constant vigilance and rapid intervention

Frequent Neurological Monitoring

• Hourly Assessments: Perform meticulous neuro checks, tracking changes in pupils, motor function, and responses using tools like the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)
• Early Detection: Identify subtle declines in mental status to catch complications like brain re-bleeding or swelling before they become irreversible.
• Seizure Control: Monitor for and immediately treat status epilepticus or silent, non-convulsive seizures using continuous EEG data.
• Airway Protection: Maintain ventilators and protect the airways of patients who have lost their natural cough or gag reflexes.
• Family Support: Provide compassionate updates and education to families facing sudden, devastating, or life-altering neurological diagnoses.
• Team Collaboration: Partner closely with neurosurgeons and stroke teams to coordinate emergency surgeries, imaging scans, and brain-death protocols

Executed roles as scrub nurse and circulating nurse to support surgical team and enhance procedural efficiency.

Assisting with highly delicate procedures on the brain, spine, and nervous system, such as craniotomies and spinal fusions.

Core mission is to maintain a flawless sterile environment and ensure extreme precision to protect the patient's neurological function.

• Prepared and troubleshot complex neurosurgery equipment to ensure optimal functionality and reliability during critical procedures.
• Micro-Instrument Care: Organize and manage hundreds of delicate micro-instruments, high-speed drills, and specialized self-retaining brain retractors.
• Hemostasis Management: Anticipate the surgeon's needs by rapidly providing specialized bone wax, hemostatic matrices, and cottonoids to control brain bleeding.
• Verified, logged, and tracked sizes of all permanent implants used, ensuring accurate records for surgical safety and compliance.

• Manages the comprehensive health, safety, and daily clinical operations for elderly and frail residents with complex, chronic medical conditions.
• Core mission is to optimize quality of life, maintain resident independence, and manage long-term decline
• Vigilant Surveillance: Spot subtle changes in baseline health to catch infections (like UTIs or pneumonia) early, preventing unnecessary hospital readmissions.
• Chronic Care: Manage complex diagnoses including advanced dementia, diabetes, heart failure, and respiratory diseases.
• Wound Management: Assess, treat, and document complex skin issues like pressure ulcers, surgical wounds, and diabetic ulcers.
• Safe Delivery: Administer heavy volumes of daily oral medications, injections, controlled substances, and intravenous (IV) therapies.
• Therapy Management: Manage specialized equipment including feeding tubes (G-tubes), urinary catheters, and supplemental oxygen systems. Staff Oversight: Direct, delegate tasks to, and supervise Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs).
• Workforce Management: Ensure shift-to-shift compliance with state regulations, facility safety protocols, and staffing ratios.
• Provider Contact: Act as the primary link between the resident, attending physicians, physical therapists, and pharmacists.
• Family Updates: Educate families on disease progression, change of condition, and compassionate end-of-life or palliative care options.

• Patient Readiness: Verify surgical consent, complete pre-op checklists, and confirm fasting (NPO) status to ensure anesthesia safety.
• Risk Assessment: Record baseline vital signs, review lab results, and identify allergies or medical histories that could impact surgery.
• Advocated for sterility in operating room, ensuring elimination of surgical site infection risks.
• Count Verifications: Conduct strict, timed counts of all sponges, needles, and instruments with the scrub technician to prevent retained foreign objects.
• Patient Guarding: Position the patient safely on the operating table to protect skin, joints, and nerves from pressure injuries during the procedure. Airway Control: Monitor patients waking up from anesthesia, managing airway patency, oxygen levels, and immediate vital sign shifts.
• Managed pain through titration of intravenous and oral medications, monitoring and addressing nausea and vomiting.