Scarborough General nurse Rose Lapada was nominated by three people, including Dr. Vivian Rambihar, who lauded her passion, kindness and caring.
A lifelong devotion to healthy hearts
May 10, 2008
TORONTO STAR
Kindness and faith beat close to Rose Lapada's heart. What gets her pumped is helping others, and an opportunity to do God's work through her profession.
"If I serve others, then I serve God," says Lapada, 49, an RN who received an honourable mention in the Star Nightingale Awards.
Lapada is a senior cardiology nurse at Scarborough General. She has nursed there for almost 20 years and loves her job.
"What I like the most is to be with the patient – to have direct contact. It's really a very humbling experience to see them get well."
It was also a humbling experience to be nominated for the award.
"I was shocked and disbelieving – since it's just a normal thing you do for people," says Lapada, who wishes to share the honour with those who nominated her and all hospital staff.
Lapada's responsibilities as a senior cardiology nurse include monitoring and assessing patients in the cardiac care unit after they have suffered a heart attack. Occasionally, she also works in the procedure room, caring for patients who are having pacemaker surgery, as well as those undergoing synchronized electrical cardioversion to treat arrhythmia. She is sometimes placed in charge of the entire floor.
Lapada lives in Scarborough with her husband Narciso, an electrician at Scarborough Grace Hospital, son Jonathan, 22, and daughters Helen, 18, and Narissa, 13. She has strong family ties, which can be traced back to growing up in Marikina near Manila in the Philippines.
The 10th of 12 children, Lapada always enjoyed looking after others. She cared for her widowed mother, Efigenia Delapaz, after she suffered a stroke at 53. She was only 10 at the time but the seeds were sown for a career in cardiovascular medicine.
Lapada went on to earn her bachelor of science in nursing in Manila in 1980 and worked in the Philippines for a few years. She left her husband behind to gain experience in U.S. hospitals before the couple immigrated to Canada in 1989. (Lapada's mother joined them in 1992.)
She updated her nursing credentials at York University and completed additional training that included a coronary care certificate at Humber College. She nursed at North York General for one year before joining Scarborough General in 1990.
Dr. Vivian Rambihar, a cardiologist at Scarborough General, has worked with Lapada since she first arrived. He is one of three who nominated her for the award – along with Karen Harris, a former co-worker who praised Lapada's volunteer activities and friendliness when she was fresh out of nursing school in 1998, and Willie Reodica, a family friend and neighbour who volunteers at the hospital.
Reodica cited Lapada's "tender loving care" with patients and the fundraising she did for a memorial fund following the 2004 death of his son Jeffrey, 17, who was shot by an undercover police officer.
Rambihar lauded Lapada's "compassion, kindness and caring," and how "she always puts the patient first."
What stands out for Rambihar was the 2005 Valentine's Day for Heart, an annual open house that he initiated 25 years ago to promote healthy lifestyles. Lapada, who has volunteered every year, dedicated the 2005 event to the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami disaster. She organized a symbolic lighting of candles and even brought in a Buddhist nun to read the Heart Mantra.
The event expanded the scope from heart health promotion on Valentine's Day to global thinking, and is now known as Valentine's Day for Heart and Global Heart.
Lapada says she wanted to do something after the tsunami disaster to give everyone an opportunity to grieve, to reflect "and heal the heart."
Lapada has put her global philosophy into practice. In 2002, she travelled to her hometown in the Philippines with donated medical supplies, some purchased with her own money, to teach first aid and CPR to church congregations and teachers at seven elementary schools.
Her extensive volunteering has garnered her several awards, including the Scarborough Hospital Network's highest honour, The Scarborough Hospital Chair's Employee Award of Excellence in 2005.
"It is my pleasure to serve," she says.
Lapada works tirelessly to carry on her mother's legacy by voluntarily teaching CPR skills to hospital staff, including recertifying physicians, and even seniors from her church.
She successfully performed CPR and the Heimlich manoeuvre while caring for her mother and wants others to be aware of how lives can be saved with these techniques. (Her mother died two years ago at age 90 from a heart attack, following other complications that included Alzheimer's.)
"Being a good nurse is that you do your job – it's a dedication in you," Lapada says.