Katalin Olah (co-Lead Mentor)
k.olah@comcast.net
Katalin, an oncology nurse at GSH since 2001, has been in nursing since earning her degree in Budapest, Hungary twenty years ago. In 1987 Katalin emigrated from Hungary to British Columbia (Canada) where she mastered the English language and jumped right back into nursing. In 2001 she moved again, this time to San Francisco. Katalin has done her fair share of adjusting to new nursing environments and is well acquainted with the level and kind of support necessary for new graduates as well as transitional nurses to successfully learn a new environment.

Sue Whiting (co-Lead Mentor)
susieqsjca@aol.com
A California native, Sue had the opportunity to earn her nursing degree at Brigham Young University. Shortly after graduation, she recalls, she worked briefly in a nursing exchange program at a rural hospital where the RN essentially ran the hospital, staffed all the units plus answered phone calls for the fire department. That was one of the many experiences in Sue's career when she would have cherished having  the support of a mentor.  Over the Thirty -four years in nursing Sue’s jobs have varied greatly but the one constant has revolved around the concept of people helping people. Sue believes that our greatest strength in life comes as we pull together, serve each other, share experiences and establish friendships.

Susan Holt
susanholt@yahoo.com
Working in the high risk Labor and Delivery unit at Good Samaritan Hospital for the past seven years, Susan often helps patients in difficult situations. It is these skills and experience she finds so valuable in her capacity as a nurse mentor. Susan truly enjoys her opportunities working with, teaching, supporting and motivating new nurses.

Elizabeth Orcutt
lizzielizard@comcast.net
Elizabeth has been at GSH’s NICU for over six years. Already an experienced preceptor for new hires she looks forward to the gratification of encouraging, supporting and helping now as a mentor. Elizabeth knows how important this support can be. As she says of her own experience, “without the help of experienced nurses when I was new, and their encouragement, I don’t know that I would be where I am”. And with at least fifteen mission trips to countries like Mexico, Laos, and Ecuador, helping others is an important part of Elizabeth’s life.

Kathryn Quaile
hellooonrskat@aol.com
Always eager to lend a hand when it comes to ensuring her department, neonatal ICU at Good Sam runs smoothly, Kathryn regularly precepts new nurses and traveling nurses. Being a nurse mentor will provide additional opportunities for her to help newcomers make a seamless transition, regardless of their background, to the intricacies of neonatal nursing.

Tanya Safier
tsafier@hotmail.com
Tanya has been a nurse for 15 years at GSH. She has worked in Labor/Delivery for 10 years and currently works in AP. She has received her BSN from San Jose State University. Tanya is excited to become a mentor to help support new nurses through the difficult and challenging process of orientation. She feels a “duty to help coach and nurture new nurses.”

Caryl Brown
carylbrown@comcast.net
Good Samaritan Hospital’s Critical Care RN Caryl Brown has been nursing for over forty years.  She enjoys teaching and precepting new grads, transitioning employees, and EMT/Paramedics. Her biggest reward is watching a novice transition, through mentorship, to a confident professional. Caryl's desire to help others doesn't just apply to new nurses, for several years now she has volunteered her time sewing caps for cancer patients and baby layettes for Cameron House in San Francisco.

Carolyn Linn
emergencywren@yahoo.com
Emergency Room nursing is my passion. There is nothing more stimulating or rewarding than sorting through the chaos to help people.” Carolyn is an ER nurse at GSH and has been in nursing for about nine years. After earning bachelor degrees from San Francisco State University in both Psychology and Nursing she is now enrolled at UCSF working on her MSN. Carolyn is very interested in the nursing experience and looks forward to being part of an organized support process.

Maureen Butt
mayo97@verizon.net
Maureen, first generation American of Irish immigrant parents, has been working diligently as a nurse since 1967. Currently she works in Critical Care at GSH but also has extensive experience working in emergency, surgical ICU, Med-Surg ICU and PICU. Maureen feels there is a great need for a mentor program to provide support and encouragement to new graduates.

Pamela Gilbert
pamelajgilbert@aol.com
As a Staff Nurse IV,  member of the Professional Performance Committee, and nurse representative, just to mention a few.  One might get the idea that this twenty year nursing vetran knows a thing or two about nursing, and you would be right. Pamela currently works in the ER at Good Samaritan Hospital and has been there for ten years.  Prior to that she spent a little over ten years as a Staff Nurse in the ICU. It is her knowlege, experience, and devotion that make Pamela a perfect fit for the mentor program, and it is the ongoing structured format that makes the program a good fit for her.  Being a mentor is one of the many ways Pamela stays involved as a professional helping other RNs make the most of their careers. "As in any career, making good choices is essential to your happiness and success," and sometimes we need a little help or guidance making those choices. 

Judy Pierce
jrpfgmc@yahoo.com
Judy graduated from the San Jose Hospital School of Nursing in 1970 and has a diversity of experience orienting and precepting new and future nurses. She sees nursing as a challenging profession with much “learning on the job.” Mentoring is her way of giving back to the profession and ensuring that nursing contines to prosper as a profession. Judy loves teaching and knows from experience that simply listening to someone talk through their struggles can help them formulate a plan and feel better about a tough situation.

Frances Mullin
fmullin@sbcglobal.net
Raised in Nebraska as one of a dozen children Fran attended the University of Nebraska and graduated in 1971 with a Bachelors in Nursing. Upon graduation she served until 1974 in the US Navy Nurse Corps. Fran enjoys teaching and has often found herself informally mentoring new nurses. She is looking forward to a more structured opportunity to give back to the profession. “The challenges facing the nursing profession demand that nurses support and encourage each other.”

Jude Saaks
Jude, an Rn for 28 years, is a Staff Nurse III in Behavioral health at GSH at Mission Oaks. Her Interest in mental health dats back to her BSN training at San Jose State University School of Nursing where she focused on Nursing, Psychology, and Sociology. he has even taken her skills, as a traveling nuse, as far away as Kanaoke Hawaii at the Hawaii State Hospital. When it comes to being a mentor Jude believes “we all need to know that there is someone to whom we can turn for advice, guidance, feedback….or just plain support.”

Nancy Stiverson
meandmykids@comcast.net
Working her way through nursing school at California State University, Hayward. Nancy started at GSH as a Nursing Assistant, Ward Clerk, and Telemetry Clerk. As an RN for five years, and still at GSH, Nancy works in MSIC/PICU. Providing a continuum of support for new nurses as a mentor has become the next logical step in her career.

Sarah Osborne
zim46@pacbell.net
Having grown up in Zimbabwe, Africa Sarah has a unique perspective to her nursing career that adds unique perspective to her nursing career that adds depth to her experience as a pediatric nurse at GSH. Sarah recalls her initial experience at a children’s hospital after graduating from nursing school at the University of Capetown, South Africa, and being “thrown in the deep end” end without any guidance or support. Being a mentor is her way of being the helping hand she would have appreciated as a new nurse.

Losana Blair
blair98@netzero.net
Losana, an operating room nurse at GSH, has been in nursing for twelve years. She teaches both CLS and neonatal resuscitation. Losana knows how important, and comforting, it is to be able to talk to someone who has been through the many challenges facing new nurses. She hopes to use her skills and experience to provide that kind of support.

Catherine Register
mtndalegoldens@aol.com
Catherine received hre BSN from San Jose State University in 1979. She has been a nurse at GSH since 1990 and is currently a Staff Nurse IV in Pre-Op. Catherine’s nursing background varies widely from being a facilitator in the San Jose State Nursing Lab to working on program development and individual coaching but her true passion has always been staff nursing and patient care. It is Catherine’s wide knowledge base and her experience in these other areas that make her an asset to the mentor program, and it is the gratification that she received from helping new nurses realize that everything will be good and that they have made the right choice by becoming nurses that will make Catherine an asset to the program.

Sue Ellen Cunningham
condour44@aol.com
With 37 years as a practicing nurse Sue has seen a lot of changes in the delivery of healthcare especially the role of nurses in that delivery. Sue’s specialty areas include Surgical, Orthopedics, and Neurology which she currently works in as well as Trauma and Peds. When Sue heard about the mentor program she was quick to sign on and when asked why she said it was because she often would hear about new nurses or those new to the area being frustrated and lost and decided that this was a great opportunity to offer her knowledge, understanding, guidance and most of all her time. Sue also realizes that the new nurse may need help outside of work with things such as finding a good school, church, doctor, and so on and that these are all areas that if nobody is there to just listen the new nurse may get frustrated and the chances of losing another good nurse increase, and she would like to stop that chance from ever being a possibility.

Karen Desmarais
krdesmarais@yahoo.com
Karen believes that it is important for a new nurse, either new to the profession or just the hospital to feel welcome and appreciated. Karen, a 1994 De Anza graduate, works in GSH’s mother/baby unit where she has been for seven years. When not busy working with children at GSH Karen is busy working with them in her role as a child advocate for CASA and through volunteering her time and services to work with underprivileged children that get caught up in the juvenile justice system. Karen’s philosophy about mentoring is quite simple. She feels that if a new nurse knows that at least one person other than their preceptor cares about them and wants to see them succeed at their new job it can easily make the difference between the new nurse coming back the next day, or losing them for good. She would like to be a part of the solution and make sure that all nurses, especially those she is mentoring, keep coming back.

Rubie Colobong
rubiegapuz@yahoo.com
Rubie has had a career in nursing since 1992 when she completed her BSN in the Philippines. Although she has the experience and expertise to float, covering multiple units, Rubie’s primary specialty is Med/Surg nursing. Fluency in two Filipino dialects, as well as English, has made her a valuable asset to GSH’s nursing staff. When asked what is motivating her to become a mentor Rubie says that initially it was for Professional Growth, a desire to help and to give guidance and support to the new nurses.

Elise McClain
mcclain.e@sbcglobal.net
A self-described “mother bear” to new nurses Elise has been informally mentoring new nurses for years in order to give them confidence and self-sufficiency to carry nursing into the future. Elise began her career as an LVN and continued through an AA at Ohlone College to finally her BSN at San Jose State University. The past ten years of her twenty three year career have been at the GSH L&D Unit.

Lindy Herrera
liinnddyy@aol.com
Lydia has been an RN at GSH NICU since 1987. She has earned her BSN from SJSU. She enjoys the many facets of nursing from being a primary nurse who cares for a baby and family from admission to discharge (months of hospitalization), to being in charge, going out on neonatal transport, precepting new RNs, helping and mentoring her coworkers. In the past Lydia has been on the PPC ans has worked on the Safe Staffing Law. She is a CNA rep, is on the NICU Discharge Teaching committee, and is currently working on standardizing NICU medication drips and bringing Family Centered Care practice to GSH NICU. She is excited about being a mentor through the CNF program to help other RNs achieve their dreams.

Brenda Dutkiewicz
bheavnly@sbcglobal.net
Brenda's twenty-four year career in nursing is a testament to the value of having a good mentor. When she was only sixteen years old, Brenda was mentored by a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital, today they are coworkers. Recruiting and retaining nurses are a special interest of Brenda's. Mentoring is a natural part of her vocation that she sees as a way of giving back and enhancing the nursing profession.

Audrey Paulson
apaulsonrn@msn.com

Audrey Paulson, a fourteen year nursing veteran, currently works at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose as a ICU/PICU nurse, but she has also worked in the Coronary IC, Telemetry, and the occasional float to the ED. Audrey has her CCRN and is one class shy of her BSN. She received her ADN from Evergreen college class of 1993. Aside from agreeing to take part in the foundations mentoring program Audrey likes to stay active in her facility as vice-president of the PPC, and a very active CNA nurse leader. When asked why she wanted to become a mentor she responded with “To assist with RNs who are new to the profession. As a profession, I feel we treat new grads terribly, offering little or no support, providing minimal on the job training, and placing them in a position of culture shock.” Audrey is ready for this trend to end and for nurses to start treating everyone in the profession with respect and nurture those just starting out and one way to accomplish this is by being part of the CNF Mentoring program.

Margaret Nohr-Lecuyer
530lecuyer@sbcglobal.net
A former high school and junior college teacher, Margaret has been in nursing for twenty-five years. Her specialty areas include Surgical, Ortho, and Neuro; she has worked in Son at Good Samaritan for the last twelve years. As a mentor, Margaret strives to help each new RN find their way

Margot Clark
margotjoan@ahoo.com
Since graduating from the College of Marin in 1976, Margot has been primarily a Cardiac RN. She works in the Cardiac Unit at Good Samaritan Hospital now as a charge nurse and floor nurse. In he own words "Nursing is the best profession I can imagine. It feels natural to care for others, and is very reawarding at the same time. Mentoring is an excellent opportunity to facilitate someone's transition into their position with the same nurturing that we have for our patients".

Soare Lucia
m.soare@aol.com
Soare first earned a bachelor of medical science in Bucharest, Romania and her nursing degree from DeAnza College here in California. A fifteen year nursing veteran, Soare works in the Med-Oncology department at Good Samaritan.

Valerii Abigail Rimando "Abby"
abbyrn@comcast.net
Abby earned her BSN at the University of Philippines and is fluent in both English and Tagalong. A nurse for eight years, she works in the surgical ortho unit at Good Samaritan Hospital. Abby sees mentoring as an opportunity to help new nurses feel welcome and make a smooth adjustment to their work environment.