BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer
FARRAH MAFFAI staff Judy Nicholson (above left), R.N., and Director of Ambulatory Nursing Jean Gregowicz discuss a patient at Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy. At left, Gregowicz in her Perth Amboy Hospital School of Nursing graduation photo in 1957.
When Jean Gregowicz began her first day of work at Perth Amboy General Hospital as a registered nurse in 1957, things were a little different than they are today.
"We had to wear high collars and long sleeves, shoes that looked like nun shoes and you always had a cap on your head," said Gregowicz, who is now the director of ambulatory nursing at the Joseph S. Yewaisis Outpatient Center.
Gregowicz still works at the Perth Amboy hospital — although now it’s called Raritan Bay Medical Center — and no one wears a nurse’s cap anymore.
"Now most nurses wear scrubs," she said. "Everything is faster paced. Patients used to come in for a gallbladder [for eight to 10 days]. Now, for the same operation, they come in for same-day surgery and they’re out by 3 p.m."
These days, patients care for themselves at home after surgery. A nurse’s duties are focused primarily on critical care, Gregowicz said.
"That’s how it’s changed," she said. "With critical care you’ve got to be functional. You can’t be walking around with long sleeves and a cap. That’s why the uniform went by the way-side."
She began her career at the Perth Amboy hospital at 15, when she began washing dishes as a dietary aide in 1952.
Becoming a nurse was not even on Gregowicz’s career agenda back then.
"My goal was to be a second- or third-grade teacher," she said. "But when I started working here, I met a lot of nice people, I saw patients and had contact with the nurses. So, I applied for a scholarship and I got it."
The cost of Gregowicz’s education at the Perth Amboy Hospital School of Nursing was only $450. The scholarship paid for it all. She began her lifelong nursing career with three years of education behind her.
"I was scared to death," she said about her first day on the job on Private Hall B. "I graduated the night before and the next day I was pouring out medications."
She said the pay was good back then — $2.05 an hour.
"That was good, believe it or not," she said. "That was the going rate for nurses. It’s amazing how it has evolved."
New nurses now make 10 times that amount, but with more dollars comes more duties, Gregowicz said.
"In the ’50s, nurses followed doctors’ orders," she said. "It was always, ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘No, sir.’ Today, nurses plan the care for patients. It’s more of a collaborative effort. They’re not afraid to make suggestions," Gregowicz said.
Nurses used to need a written doctor’s order just to give a patient an ice bag to alleviate swelling. Now, nurses make those decisions, Gregowicz said.
But, like in many jobs, with more responsibility comes more paperwork.
"There are more requirements and standards now," she said. "Every new patient requires a four-page assessment. There’s a lot of documentation and new equipment."
In 1972, Gregowicz left Private Hall B, where she had been trained and working as a staff nurse, for Southwest 5, where, as a head nurse, she said she supervised a staff, caring for patients with head traumas.
"That was a rough floor," she said. "We had a lot of people in comas. You’d have a person in a coma for months. It was such a great feeling when — it sounds like what you see on television — but when you hold their hand they squeeze it or you see them open their eyes for the first time, some of the stuff on TV is true."
However harrowing a day at the hospital may have been, Gregowicz never shared it with her husband Edward, a retired Perth Amboy police officer. With two sons to raise, Gregowicz said they had more important things to talk about.
"We had a deal," she said. "He never told me about his work day and I never talked to him about mine. I didn’t want to know. I thought it wasn’t my place to discuss a patient."
In 1989, Gregowicz, who by then had obtained a graduate degree in nursing from Seton Hall University, moved out of the main hospital to work across the street at the outpatient center where she’s been ever since.
"I had the opportunity to change jobs every eight years or so," she said. "If I didn’t have all these new positions, I would have been burned out long ago."
In 1998, the Perth Amboy Division of Raritan Bay Medical Center underwent a multimillion dollar construction and remodeling project that renovated, among other things, Gregowicz’s old floor.
Gregowicz may be better off across the street. She said when she walks into the main hospital, she gets lost.
"After all these new changes I felt like a new person," she said. "I was in the gold wing and I didn’t know where I was."
At 67, Gregowicz said she doesn’t plan on retiring anytime soon.
"I’m not going anywhere," she said. "I like it here. Every day is different. We do a lot of patient education and have a lot of close personal contact with the patients."
My husband wanted to move down the shore, but I told him I wouldn’t even drive over the Driscoll bridge," she joked. "We moved to Fords."