NORTHAMPTON – Cooley Dickinson Hospital is pleased to welcome Barbara Orekondy, MS, RNC, a clinical nurse specialist and clinical practice manager who will work on the Childbirth Center.

Orekondy comes to Cooley Dickinson from Albany Medical Center in New York, where she served as an education specialist for nearly four years specializing in perinatal nursing and also worked as per diem nursing supervisor. Before returning to Albany Medical Center full time in 2006, she was the clinical nurse specialist at Bellevue Woman's Hospital in Schenectady, N.Y. for five years. She started her perinatal nursing career as a labor and delivery nurse for 11 years at Albany Medical Center.

At Cooley Dickinson, Orekondy says her goals are to initiate more unit-based perinatal education, patient rounding and improve and facilitate the documentation procedure for nurses so they can spend more time at the bedside. "It's exciting to me. I can achieve things here," Barbara says. "I'm an educator, first and foremost."

Orekondy says because she has high standards and expectations, she thinks she will fit in well at Cooley Dickinson, where the organization models a philosophy that puts top-quality care at the forefront.

Over the summer, Orekondy says she and her husband, Basavaraja, or "Raja", spent quite a bit of time in the Northampton area, talking with people about Cooley Dickinson Hospital and the Childbirth Center. "I'm hearing lots of positive stories," she says. "Everyone raves about Cooley Dickinson Hospital and what a wonderful place it is and what a wonderful Childbirth Center it has.

The Orekondys left the community they had lived, raised two children and worked in for the last 36 years because they are both excited about Cooley Dickinson Hospital and the opportunities here. Raja was a urologist in practice for 36 years before he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease, (otherwise known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS).