25-03-2025
Remarkable Women: Jessica Sleilati
VESTAL, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – We continue highlighting the Remarkable Women in our community with a UHS worker who trains the new hires on how to treat their patients.
Jessica Sleilati works behind the scenes, but her impact is felt throughout the community.
The onboarding process for any job is historically tedious, but especially within a healthcare organization, its more than just paperwork.
Jessica Sleilati is the manager for Nursing education at UHS.
Her class is more than just learning a computer software; she's teaching people how to talk and interact with patients. She says nurses have to be ready for anything.
'Healthcare workers face danger being at work. And so, I've been very passionate and interested in training staff to be able to accurately recognize escalating behaviors and crisis. And then also be able to compassionately and competently react through de-escalation techniques,' says Sleilati.
Sleilati was promoted to her current managerial position just last month after working as an educator in the Behavioral Health Department at Binghamton General Hospital for seven years.
She also gives talks at UHS and around the community about suicide prevention and detection.
She advocates for frequent suicide screenings and check-ins with patients.
'Often we think, whether it be suicide prevention or de-escalation or anything, any kind of intervention, that it requires this huge, big effort, but really, so many interventions, they're profound, but they don't take a lot of time and effort and they make a huge difference,' says Sleilati.
She says some data shows a correlation, that people who recently visited a care provider have higher rates of suicide, and she's motivated to erase that narrative.
Sleilati stresses to her new hires, that having a simple conversation can change someone's life.
'There's a lot of myths surrounding suicide as well. That, if you talk to someone about it will plant the idea in their mind, and that's just not true. The work that we do, the work that I have done, is shedding light on the burden of suicide things that actually do help,' says Sleilati.
Laura Brassard is Sleilati's friend and also works at UHS as a nurse educator.
Brassard says Sleilati is a great listener, and the type of person you want to vent to, whether it be about work, home life, or the new book you're reading.
Brassard says she knew Sleilati was remarkable when she created a replica of the hospital to teach the nurses where things were.
'A bird's eye view of the units in the hospital and created Lego pieces so that if there were some sort of emergency, the nurses could see from a top-down approach, what needs to be done, where they need to move to. Just a really unique way to instill learning in people besides, here read this or recite this, or memorize this,' says Brassard.
I asked Sleilati how she defines a remarkable woman, and her answer was someone who's making a positive impact in their community.
The values of respect, compassion, and understanding, that can be seen throughout the entire UHS system, all trickle down from Sleilati and her passion.
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