|
Jersey
native is Student Health's good fella
By Carolyn Gonzales
Tony
Soprano hes not, although he and the TV mobster share a
common Italian ancestry and hail from New Jersey. Ron Besante,
nurse manager at the Student Health Center (SHC), gives shots,
but doesnt shoot, and he cares for rather than kills people.
Besante
has worked at UNM for more than 20 years, first at University
Hospital (UH) and now at SHC, where he and 12 nurses staff the
clinic. A certified emergency room nurse, he still works weekends
at the hospital as the house supervisor. Im the administrator
they call if they need someone after hours, he says. I
still enjoy patient care more than being a bureaucrat, noting
that he also does scheduling and safety education.
But,
working on a masters in public administration, hes
in training for fulltime status as a bureaucrat.
I
have 12 to 15 hours left, he says. His plan is to move into
hospital management.
How
does a Jersey man end up in New Mexico? A court-ordered stint
in the Navy at 17 landed him in boot camp in Orlando, Fla., where
he met three Taos Indians. They talked to me about New Mexico
and it intrigued me. Then, when I was a Navy medic stationed in
Connecticut, my first charge nurse, Mike Shannon, was from Albuquerque.
He forced me to come out here, he says. Shannon
works at University Hospital as an emergency room nurse.
Despite
his naval background, it was a colonel who motivated him to get
an education. I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken when I
was in high school. I swore Id never do that again,
he says. Besante earned his undergraduate degree at Regents College
in New York.
At
the SHC, Besante and Co. mostly see students for allergies, cold,
flu, minor injuries, bicycle accidents, asthma and stomach viruses.
A
Lobo ID is all you need. The price students pay depends on whether
or not theyre full or part time, he says. They see
between 80-100 students a day at the walk-in urgent care and the
primary doctors see 100-150 students a day. We have six
doctors and seven mid levels, physician assistants and nurse practitioners,
he says.
The SHC employs
work-study students. We have them filing paperwork and stocking.
Its a great place for students to work who are interested
in entering the medical profession, he says.
Besante says
that the nurses who work at the SHC and at UH could probably earn
30-40 percent more if they were to work elsewhere. We cant
compete with the private sector incentives. We have to find those
individuals who enjoy working with students because its
not all about the money, he says.
The nursing
shortage does affect UNM, he says. The hospital was short
seven nurses last weekend, he says, and he had difficulty
filling the last nursing vacancy at the SHC.
Besante enjoys
what hes doing and where he is and his philosophy is not
to obsess over things or take them too seriously. Like my
grandmother told me, Take a job you love and youll
never work a day in your life.
He has an
incentive to offer SHC employees. I cook a lot, he
says. I have pasta days. People will kick in a few dollars
and they get all the pasta and salad they can eat. Among
his specialties are Greek and balsamic vinaigrette salads, he
says, pointing to a display of vinegars and seasonings on the
corner of his desk.
Also on his
desk are treasures students have given him. They lend a museum
quality to his office. A calimba, or thumb piano from the Kalahari
Desert, and an okrina, or clay flute, from Peru, are displayed.
He picks up a minstrel figurine. I just finished writing
a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan on behalf of the student
who gave me this.
He says he
enjoys working with students, partly because he has college-aged
children. My daughter Melissa is graduating from UNM in
May, he says. She started on the lottery scholarship and
is finishing on the dependent education benefit. His daughter
Mary Jane is a Southwest Airlines flight attendant.
His son,
John, is a freshman at Albuquerque High and the youngest child
James is an 8th grader at Jefferson Middle School. His wife, Mary
Jane, is a kindergarten teacher at Los Padillas.
Besantes
family commutes to Albuquerque from Belen each day for school
and work. Life is good in Belen. For a while, they had a goat.
It was a tax write off as a grazing animal on farm land,
he says. Now they have no goat, but a swimming pool. I dont
recommend that anyone have one. Its a lot of work,
he says.
New Mexico
has grown on the Besantes, but they do get back to New Jersey
occasionally.
We
go visit family, but after 20 minutes on the turnpike and paying
10 tolls we want to come running back to New Mexico, he
says.
Reflecting,
he says, If that judge hadnt told me to join the Navy,
I would probably be dead or in prison.
If
you feel good about what youre doing, you sleep well at
night. My family loves me. Im the richest man on earth,
he says.
|