Ms. Marta Herrera, HN is recipient of Metropolitan Hospital Employee of the Year Award for 2004. Aptly, she was also selected as the Nurse of the Year.

Ms. Herrera’s interest in nursing began as a candy striper at Mount Sinai Hospital while in high school. She pursued this interest by enrolling at Bronx Community College for her AAS and later graduated with a BSN degree from Hunter College.

She started at Metropolitan Hospital in 1971 as a staff nurse and became the Head Nurse in the Mental Health Clinic in 1977. Many changes have occurred and Ms. Herrera became the rock of all staff and patients in the clinic. She acted as a solid and accurate source of information, direction and guidance not only to the nursing staff but to other disciplines as well.

Ms. Herrera is an astute clinician and has good management skills. She is instrumental in making the sometimes-chaotic Mental Health Clinic accomplish its goals in a calm and flawless manner. She is very much admired by all those she worked with because of her many endearing qualities. She is a good educator; a sensitive and caring individual whose ability to listen and empathize with staff makes people draw to her for help when needed. She has a significant role in developing an educational tape being shown in the clinic while patients wait to be seen by therapist.

She is a spiritual person with strong ethical values. Ms. Herrera demonstrates fairness, dedication, honesty and integrity in everything that she does. This is manifested by her interactions and dealings with her supervisor, colleagues and subordinates.

Many regulatory agencies have come to survey the clinic. JCAHO, OMH, etc. have visited the clinic and Ms. Herrera was instrumental in getting good results. As a professional nurse with many roles, she fulfills her role as a wife and mother to a son as well as a caregiver to a disabled elderly mother.

We are very proud to select her as Nurse of the Year at Metropolitan Hospital.