MMC's newest Employee of the Month Clay Rezende is pictured at the Monmouth Family Health Center with, from left, Rose Polasky, Regional Director, Employee Experience; Margaret Bilby, Director of the Ryan White Grant Department; Michael Perdoni, Vice President of Clinical Operations, Dana Laute and Bhumi Trivedi, Human Resource Business Partners; and Cory Lasker, Vice President of Finance.
Long Branch, N.J., June 12, 2024 –Clay Rezende, coordinator for Monmouth Medical Center’s Ryan White Grant Department , is the hospital’s Employee of the Month for May. In nominating Clay, his director, Margaret Bilby, praised the positivity, sense of teamwork and support he brings to the clinic, writing:
“Clay, since being hired in June of 2023, has increased grant funding in our prevention grant and hired a Nurse Practitioner, rolled out STI services and enhanced pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services, with a focus on providing services and medications to undocumented and uninsured patients, free of charge. Clay continually seeks grant opportunities for our clinic and advocates for MMC within the greater HIV community. He is a certified translator in Portuguese and Spanish and provides support to our patients in these communities. Clay has an unmatched warmth and ability to connect with others, to include fellow employees, patients and community members. He is a powerful advocate for patients and always ensures they get what they need and are aware of their rights. He provides me with a unique perspective on the community we serve and does not hesitate to give me feedback on how to innovate programs. Clay is a wonderful blend of an engaging personality and an organized, analytical employee who is able to collect and make sense of data to better inform programmatic decisions and improve patient quality. He is as at home speaking to a doctor as he is with speaking to a patient. He easily breakdowns and crosses barriers with his personality and sincere commitment to the work we do. Under Clay, the PrEP program has grown to include patients of partner seeking to get pregnant and patients who may have been previously unaware of PrEP/STI services.
Clay is an excellent communicator who is able to bring out the best in his coworkers. He works side by side with clinical staff to support the patient. Recently, a patient of ours was recommended for hospice. The patient’s son was not comfortable with or informed about hospice. Clay attended a meeting with the patient’s son to advocate to provide family input, along with our RN. The patient received quality palliative care and was released, as she had improved dramatically. That story sums up who Clay is—there when you need him, a voice for when you feel voiceless and unconditionally supportive. I view Clay as my ‘right hand’ and he has supported, questioned, encouraged and pushed me to do my best for our staff and patients. He is a true asset to MMC.”
Kathy Horan
732-546-6317
kathy.horan@rwjbh.org