Lizzet Carmona

Lizzet Carmona, BSN, RN, MEDSURG-BC, is a proud recipient of the Charles Hamlin Scholarship. She is currently a second-year doctoral student in the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at Columbia University School of Nursing. She began her nursing journey at Hudson Community College and later completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Rutgers University. 

Lizzet's path to nursing stems from a profoundly personal experience. At a young age, she watched her mother face a life-threatening illness, an experience that left a lifelong mark on her understanding of healthcare and the challenges many families like hers faced. Throughout her mother's recovery, Lizzet recognized how challenging it was for families like hers to obtain appropriate follow-up care due to a lack of insurance, language barriers, and little awareness of available resources. Lizzet's family struggles led her to want to do more for her community, so that patients like her mother would not have to navigate an illness feeling confused, isolated, or overwhelmed, during an already challenging time. This personal experience ultimately led Lizzet to pursue a career in nursing. Lizzet knew that the only way to truly help patients and families like hers navigate such a complex healthcare system was to work in it. During nursing school, she worked as a patient care technician (PCT) in the float pool at Hackensack University Medical Center throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lizzet's experience as a PCT during the pandemic deepened her commitment to providing patients with unbiased, high-quality care, while also reinforcing the importance of educating patients and communities about the power of preventive care.  

After graduating from nursing school, Lizzet joined Hackensack University Medical Center's Nurse Residency Program, launching her nursing career on a Geriatric/Medical-surgical unit. Upon completing her residency, she continued working on the same unit while also contributing to the hospital's COVID-19 response. She took on additional shifts in the COVID-19 auxiliary units, served as a nurse vaccinator, and worked as a discharge nurse to further support Hackensack's discharge initiative, which aimed to streamline patient discharges and prioritize a thorough patient education upon discharge. As a discharge nurse, she focused on ensuring each patient understood their disease, medications, and need for follow-up care in preparation for a safe return to the community. 

She later transitioned to the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit, where she continues to provide high-quality care, patient education, and emotional support to critically ill patients and their families. Working at bedside showed Lizzet how clinical expertise, advocacy, and teaching come together to create outstanding nursing care. However, it also exposed the persistent systemic flaws that still too often let patients down, and contribute to nurse burnout, especially since the pandemic. This drove her to pursue her Doctor of Nursing Practice, not just to further her clinical expertise but also to obtain the leadership tools needed to drive change far beyond the hospital walls. With telehealth and Artificial Intelligence reshaping healthcare since the pandemic, Lizzet is eager to use these tools to bridge care gaps, make treatment more accessible, improve medication compliance, and enhance patient experiences, especially for those with chronic conditions like hypertension and heart failure. Lizzet also aims to use these tools to ease the burden on nurses and providers to ensure more time to care for patients. This past year, Lizzet and her colleague presented at the 40th annual New York Nurse Practitioner Association Conference, sharing their analysis on how AI can improve medication compliance and reduce readmission rates among heart failure patients. Lizzet hopes to one day integrate technology advancements such as AI and telehealth into an outreach program that can help anticipate patients' needs ahead of time, reduce unnecessary hospital visits, and  identify healthcare trends to predict community needs. She also hopes to one day have a seat at the table and be an active participant in healthcare policy making.

Lizzet is grateful to receive the Charles Hamlin Scholarship, as this scholarship not only eases the financial burdens but also fuels her mission to ensure equitable healthcare access and harness technology's potential to combat nurse burnout and to improve patient care.