Elaine Mustacchio Receives National Recognition

A few weeks ago I shared in the Weekly Wrap Up that Elaine Mustacchio, MSN, CRRN, nurse manager, was notified that she had received a national award recognizing her lifetime of service to pediatric rehabilitation.

For Elaine it was very overwhelming and somewhat embarrassing – my word not hers. See she, like many of us, has the chance to work with our children and sees it as a tremendous honor and gift to help our kids get better.

All of those holidays when she ran around like a crazy person to make sure every kid had a Halloween costume or when she worked with Dr. Burke to make sure one of the babies was wearing their best dress when their new foster parent came to see them for the first time.

She didn’t do any of those things because someone told her to or she had to. She did it because it was part of the healing process; a natural next step to try to get things to normal.

When our kids “age out” she continues to go visit them in their new locations. She’d be the first to say “I am not the only one who does this. Many people do.” And she would be right – that is what makes Children’s Specialized Hospital so special.

I’m so impressed and thankful for the things you guys do without thinking twice—Trish West-Low coming in from her vacation to teach yoga to the kids at camp or Kate Vieni working in a 10-mile run with one of our children in the pain program, for example. Or the hundreds of hours the Trish Yurochko, Ann Marie Santos, Elke Van Hooydonk, and ALL the people who volunteer with Lightning Wheels donate to help those children achieve their personal bests.

All over the state, through the work of each of you, you are extending your work and touching families in a way that give them hope and make it all seem better – even when it may not be anywhere close to what they had hoped and dreamed for their children.

We all celebrate and honor Elaine for this amazing recognition. We are so very proud. And we know it could have been anyone in the Children’s Specialized family – because those are our values, our culture, and who we are as people. That is what brought us to this very special place and why we work so hard to improve the lives of our children.