Lucy Reyes: Breaking Barriers for Filipino Nurses from the Bedside to the Boardroom

Nov 28

Her start in nursing

While growing up in the Philippines, every day Reyes’ father would tell her to recite short verses encouraging to her to do her very best. At the end of each day, he’d ask her, “what good did you do today”?

In her story, she recalls being introduced to public health care at a young age while accompanying her father, a vet technician, on his trips to remote areas in the Philippines to vaccinate villagers for tuberculosis.

“Learning by watching, I began giving shots when I was in Grade 5. These experiences created my passion to learn more about public health care,” she explained.

Sadly, in 1970 as a new nursing graduate, Reyes witnessed her father go into cardiac arrest, with the medical team unable to save him.

“I felt so inept as a new nursing graduate,” she said. This experience motivated her to explore more ways she could help people in need.

A desire to make a difference

Armed with a desire to explore more opportunities, Reyes learned that St. Michaels Medical Centre in New Jersey was hiring new graduate nurses. Inspired to pursue the opportunity, Reyes sent in her application, and a year later, she was onboard a flight to start her career in New Jersey. To her surprise, the plane was also full of other nurses and doctors moving to the United States to do the same.

“We landed at almost midnight and were met by the hospital Human Resources person. In our tiny voices we all said, “We are in America”,” she said.

Working in the United States

She began her career in the United States by pursuing the Exchange Visitor program— an immersion for foreign trained nurses who want to advance their career with very minimum salary and stipend, housing, classes and training included.

Following completion of the program, she was promoted to a case manager for cardiac surgery patients—her first experience with cardiac care since her dad’s passing.

“Initially I could see my father’s face when I attended a code blue emergency, but this soon disappeared as I gained more knowledge and skills in cardiac care.”

She was offered other promotions in New Jersey, but in 1975, she married her high school classmate and moved to Calgary, Alberta, in Canada to join him.

Nursing in Canada

The transition was not as easy as she hoped. At the time, jobs for registered nurses (RN) in Alberta were scarce and without work, she couldn’t get the experience needed to acquire her credential licensure.

“I went door to door to the continuing care centres,” she explained.

After finally getting a job, it only took her a month to get her RN license to practice. She applied to Calgary General Hospital and was hired to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in critical care. After some restructuring of the department while off on maternity leave with her second child, Reyes was encouraged to apply for a new nurse clinician position. She took the position after only two months on leave because she knew that opportunities like that don’t come often.

“Opportunities only knock once at your door, and [I knew] I must grab it. This laid the foundation and beginning of my journey as a leader at the bedside,” she said.

Moving up

After more than a year as a nurse clinician, Reyes was promoted to frontline manager of a very busy internal medicine unit. “I was the first visible minority to hold such position,” she said. “I [knew I had to] continue to give my best in everything that I do.”

In this role, she was able to boost staff morale, improve staffing levels, formalize patient and family feedback, and even establish certification processes for new programs.

However, in order to continue to advance her career, she felt like she needed to advance her education. She started part-time graduate studies at a local university, while working a full-time job and parenting her two daughters. Reyes notes that she was the first Internationally Educated Nurse (IEN) to graduate with a master’s degree in nursing.

Leadership from the bedside to the boardroom

Reyes explained that in the mid-1990’s, massive restructuring and downsizing in public healthcare occurred in Alberta.

As a frontline manager who was tasked to do the downsizing, she felt the need to collaborate with her professional association to share her views. She ran and was elected provincial councillor for the Alberta Association of Registered Nurses to represent almost 23,000 registered nurses.

As a Filipino nurse, she was proud to be a trend-setter and bring her passion for nursing to the boardroom of the Association. At the end of her political term, she was nominated and chosen as the recipient of the Vogel Award for Exemplary Service to Provincial Council.

“After this award, I received subsequent nominations for different professional governance committees as well as the Alberta Health Expert Panel Advisory Committee to Health Restructuring and at the national level as an adjudicator for the Canadian Nurses Protective Society and the Canadian Nurses Ethics Expert Panel to review our Code of Ethics.”

Reyes was becoming a well-known name within the health community.

Leading through change

In 2000 while continuing to carry the responsibilities as a manager, Reyes was seconded as the client project director to lead the planning and implementation of an existing computer system. She worked hard to ensure the technological change was not too tumultuous for the team.

“Following the successful and smooth Y2K transition I became the first Nursing Informatics Senior Specialist within the IT department,” she said.

Working alongside her medical counterpart, they were successful in getting funding from the government for a four-year, $80 million start up project to procure a fully integrated electronic system.

“A new era of work was about to happen,” she said.

As more changes to healthcare in the province occurred, Reyes was deployed to manage all six cardiac clinics at the same hospital and was also appointed to coordinate the work of the Strategic Clinical Network Arrhythmia and Stroke working group at the same time.

Her experience led her to working with other clinical frontline leaders across the province to implement Cardiac Implantable Electrical Devices (CIED)— a four-year project to connect to patient populations remotely while living in either rural or urban areas.

Following her heart

When her husband’s health started to decline, Reyes needed to reduce her workload, so she retired from her manager position. She was hired to work on the Performance Evaluation and Rhythm Follow up Optimization through Remote Monitoring (PERFORM) project as the overall project coordinator as well as Clinical Lead for the remote monitoring. This project connected patients living with a Cardiac Implantable Electronic Defibrillators (CIED) to their designated programs remotely across the province.

After helping more than 5,000 people across the province, they completed the project in 2018, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. For the PERFORM project, they received the one of the 2020 Patient Experience Awards: Inspiring Positive Change from the Quality Council of Alberta.

“I always want to give my best in everything I do and striving to be the best Pinay Leader I can be, my story is an example of one woman [who comes from] humble beginnings.”

Reyes continues to be involved with patient-oriented research.

Looking forward

In 2021, Reyes was successfully nominated for a Filipina Women’s Network’s FNW100™ award that recognizes Filipino women who have reached status for outstanding work in their respective fields. She received the Innovation and Thought Leader award.

At the end of her short story submitted for the FNW100™ awards, she reflects back on a journey that was full of surprises and challenges.

“I remember my first management meeting, one of the other managers asked me if I work in housekeeping or kitchen, I looked at myself I was in full business suit and I was not carrying a mop nor kitchen tray. When I asked him why he thought so he explained that these are the areas that Filipinos work,” she said.

“I took him aside without telling him who I was, and when the introductions of new managers started this guy stood up and admitted how wrong he was to stereotype people that do not look like him.”

Thinking about what her father said, Lucy Reyes has and continues to do a lot of good, every day.

“When someone puts you down, rise up, prove them wrong,” said Reyes in her acceptance speech at the 2021 Filipino Women’s Network gala.

Doreen Slessor

Lucy Reyes: Breaking Barriers for Filipino Nurses from the Bedside to the Boardroom