As system director of nursing and clinical operations for the emergency service line at St. Joseph’s Health in Patterson, New Jersey, Janine Llamzon knows what it is like to be on the frontline during a crisis.
Llamzon, a current Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) student at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, is part of a new documentary, In Case of Emergency, that profiles emergency nurses working through the COVID-19 pandemic.
The documentary premieres virtually Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 8 p.m. ET and will be followed by a live panel discussion with the filmmakers and the nurse stars. Pre-register for the free live premiere.
In the film, Llamzon speaks to multiple aspects of coping with the pandemic on the frontline, including the danger to her family through her work when a COVID-positive patient first entered her hospital.
“I’m going to come home to my children, and I have the potential of giving them the disease if I get infected,” she said in one of her interviews. “But then I realized that this is what I am supposed to do. In order for me to lead my nurses, I have to be the first one. It was important for me to do that because I am not going to push them into doing something that I personally won’t do first.”
Photographer and filmmaker Carolyn Jones, who has worked extensively with nurses on her project The American Nurse, continues her work recording and sharing the experiences of nurses across the United States in this new film. In Case of Emergency was made possible through the support of the Emergency Nurses Association.
Llamzon is set to graduate in May 2021.