Aisha Melendez talked about her experience working in healthcare during Black History Month: Aisha Melendez will be a familiar face to anyone who’s stepped into Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Medical Office in Greenport or Quannacut Outpatient Services.
With nine years working at these two, very different practices in various capacities – doing patient intakes, helping patients with insurance claims, even assisting doctors on small, in-house procedures – Melendez is passionate about the community she helps.
It was the steady, Monday-through-Friday work that first drew Melendez to SBELIH, and the stability and reliability makes her job all the more rewarding.
“I’ve got no complaints,” Melendez says. “I love what I do. I love working with people. “And it’s a whole different world at Quannacut,” Melendez says.
It’s especially rewarding for Melendez to see patients’ lives improve at Quannacut. Thanks to their treatment for substance use disorders, Melendez has seen patients get sober, go back to school, find and maintain jobs, and even get their children back from social services.
One of the surgeons Melendez works with at Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Medical Office is Dr. Melany Hughes, an award-winning doctor who she considers a great inspiration. As an African American woman in healthcare, Melendez is very proud and finds it inspiring to see others like her succeed. “I think it’s huge,” she said. We have African American doctors, nurses.”
Melendez also credits Juliet Frodella, who she’s worked with for her entire time at SBELIH, as a constant inspiration and source of guidance and support. Frodella saw great potential in her.
So nine years on, Melendez continues to work happily and with great enthusiasm at a hospital she considers to be a great resource for the North Fork.
Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital is a diverse place to work, and Melendez believes it makes patients feel more comfortable. “We have a little bit of everything here,” she said. “It’s so good for the community. If you’re a minority here, you should feel comfortable. I love the diversity here.”
