32 THE QUEENS COURIER • MAY 7, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
nurses week
Photos courtesy of Lorraine Carita
A daff odil for each recovered patient: Maimonides
adorns windows with faux fl owers to spark hope
BY MEAGHAN MCGOLDRICK
A couple hundred fl ower decals have
gone a long way for Maimonides Medical
Center, where staff ers have lined the windows
with nearly 1,000 makeshift daffodils
— each representing a recovered
COVID-19 patient who has been safely
discharged from the Borough Park hospital,
and collectively spreading hopeful joy
to healthcare heroes.
“We were talking to our residents about
the humanistic elements of medicine,
which is really, how do you remember
to be a human being in the face of the
stresses of healthcare?” said Dr. Jennifer
Breznay, who helped spearhead the eff ort
with her colleagues Mark Roberts and
Robin Gitman, vice president of the hospital’s
Academic Aff airs Department.
“Mark and I both thought that the
idea of really focusing on the successes
— and on the good and the positive —
was important, even as we face our darkest
days,” she said, stressing that the project,
which doubles as a source of positivity
for patients and their families, serves as
a “visual sign” of Maimonides’ success and
growth during the current crisis.
As of Monday, 920 daff odils composed
the fi eld of faux fl owers in the 10th Avenue
medical center’s large, glass window display
— which Dr. Breznay compared to
a “community garden.” Th e fl ower itself
symbolizes “rebirth and new beginnings,”
according to the website TeleFlora, and is
virtually synonymous with spring.
“It really is something beautiful,” she
told Brooklyn Paper, adding that the
Academic Department’s hope is that each
member of Maimonides staff gets to take
part in the project in some way.
Some discharged patients have even
been able to hang their own daff odil, the
doctor said.
“It’s important to remember that we’re
in this together,” Dr. Breznay said. “At
Maimonides, we’re all about celebrating
success — even in light of very dark days
and sad losses. We have to have hope for
things to get better and that’s what we’re
doing with this project.”
While Dr. Breznay is a geriatric care and
internal medicine provider, Roberts and
Gitman work in the hospital’s Academic
Department, which supports the medical
center’s 400-plus residents who are still in
training.
Gitman has oft en encouraged her team
to come up with creative projects like
this one — but, in times like these, support
for staff is even more crucial, the
doctor said.
But, at the end of the day, Dr. Breznay
hopes that all who pass the growing display
will feel a sense of “hope” when
entering or leaving Maimonides Medical
Center, and realize that “good things are
happening here, too.”
Maimonides staff ers hang daff odil decals in the medical center’s window.
/WWW.QNS.COM
