Lehigh Valley Health Network honored 36 nurses for their patient care in an award ceremony on Sept. 28 at the ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem. Five of those nurses are from the Pocono region: Jadwiga Antosik of East Stroudsburg, Rachel Barletta-Scarcella of Weatherly, Mackenzie Dorney of Saylorsburg, Marion Nihen of Walnutport and Jaime Zanelli of Germansville.

The awards ceremony marked the 30th year that LVHN has honored its nurses.

Jamie Zanelli

Jamie Zanelli received the Kim Jordan Transformational Leadership award. She is a nurse at the LVPG Advanced Spine Center.

“The reception on Sept. 28 was an incredible experience,” Zanelli said. This was her first time receiving an award from LVHN.

Zanelli said she works hard to do a good job for her patients, not for awards, and was surprised when she was nominated and then received an award.

“LVHN holds their nurses in such high regard,” she said. “I really want more than anything for people to know how honored I felt to receive this award. This recognition was far beyond anything I’ve ever had before.”

Zanelli said she was inspired by the stories of her colleagues and humbled to be one of the awardees among them. The stories of their experiences during the pandemic, all they went through, and all they saw touched her deeply.

Zanelli said they talked about the anguish of not being able to let a person’s loved ones be with him or her in the last moments of life, and how they would move spouses into the same room so they could pass away together.

“I salute everyone. I feel like what I did was nothing compared to them,” she said.

Zanelli was an integral part of a team that assisted hundreds of patients find new care providers as quickly as possible. She thinks her critical thinking skills, nursing experience and established relationships with care providers throughout the LVHN system helped her to provide answers to worried patients and connect them to the care they needed.

Since having completed that work, Zanelli was promoted and is now the project director for the Advanced Spine Program, and earned a master’s degree in nursing.

“My nursing education is one of the most important things to me,” she said.

Rachel Barletta -Scarcella

Education is also important to Rachel Barletta-Scarcella. She received the Fleming Award for Exemplary Performance Associated with the Nurse Residency program, and is a nurse in Patient Care Services at LVH-Hazleton.

Barletta-Scarcella said she started her career not knowing what she wanted to do in medicine, but she knew she wanted to work in some area of it. She found a program for free training to become a licensed practical nurse, and jumped on it.

“I really fell in love with nursing,” she said. “I love helping my community.”

From there, Barletta-Scarcella went on to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and then a master’s degree in forensic nursing in 2019. Recently, she completed a second master’s degree to become a nurse practitioner.

Despite her own journey in nursing, Barletta-Scarcella never thought of herself as a mentor to the nurses she guides in LVHN’s nursing residency program. She realizes now, that’s exactly what she’s become.

“I like to help inspire people,” she said. A career in nursing has a variety of paths to pursue.

As a professional development specialist at LVH-Hazleton, Barletta-Scarcella worked with the new nurses who had just graduated from college and had started their first job as nurses.

“The first year can be overwhelming,” Barletta-Scarcella said. She not only helped them navigate their first year, but also she provided a friendly smile and an ear to listen.

The nursing residency program gives the new graduates an opportunity to grow in confidence in their profession, but also to contribute to their units with new ideas.

“It gives them a real voice,” she said.

So far this year, Barletta-Scarcella has taken under her wing six groups of new nurses. Since beginning her work with the program, she has led about 20 groups.

Rewarding job

Jadwiga Antosik received an award for Excellence in Rehabilitation Nursing. She is a nurse at the Transitional Skilled Unit at LVH-17th Street.

Mackenzie Dorney and Marion Nihen each received the Fleming Nursing Caring award. Dorney is a nurse in the Emergency Department at LVH-Cedar Crest, and Nihen has been a labor and delivery nurse for more than 25 years. She works at LVH-Muhlenberg.

“What is most rewarding about taking care of patients - taking care of new families - is when you see them grow. You see them grow right before your eyes,” Nihen said in a news release. “There are patients who have brought back their new family so I can see how they’re growing. I feel like I have a lot of extended grandchildren.”