'Die-Hard' Nurse Voted Hospital Hero

Health workers are often considered heroes, but it’s now official for Roz Nolan.

The senior director of clinical and community services at Community Hospital of San Bernardino, Nolan was recently named the 2008 Hospital Hero for San Bernardino County by the National Health Foundation.

She was honored for getting more of the hospital’s new mothers to breast-feed their babies.

“It’s just very cool,” she said, as she visited a class of mothers and newborns waiting to be discharged. “I feel truly blessed and thankful to my great team at CHSB. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

The Hospital Hero award is a three-year-old program that honors outstanding hospital employees.

Nolan was nominated for her concern for patients, coupled with her positive attitude and energy.

She has shown passion for working with patients since she was 19. At that age, she was already working with trauma patients as a critical-care nurse.

She went on to work in hospitals all over Los Angeles County and earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing and a doctorate in education.

After working at Kaiser Riverside Medical Center, she was hired at Community Hospital of San Bernardino as a clinical nurse specialist.

“I am just a die-hard nurse,” she said of her experience in the field. “Nursing is the only way you get to take care of the total essence of the patient.”