Evelyn Petralia, RN, who served for many years as Nurse Manager of CPEP and the Inpatient Child Unit on 12 North, will retire on September 1 after sixteen and a half years at Stony Brook.
Ms. Petralia, who came to Stony Brook after thirteen years at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, played a leading role in the renovation and expansion of CPEP in the late 1990’s and in the design of the new CPEP that will be constructed next year. She was instrumental in re-engineering of the process for triaging and admitting patients to CPEP, and in the implementation of the FirstNet patient tracking system.
One of the hallmarks of her career at Stony Brook was her successful initiative to reduce the use of restraints and seclusion on 12 North. In 1999, before the initiative started, four hundred instances of restraint or seclusion were documented. Ten years later, the number was reduced to nine. In 2007 Ms. Petralia was invited to Vienna to present her work at the International Conference of Sigma Theta Tau, the Honor Society of Nursing. She has also reported on the initiative twice at the American Psychiatric Nurses Association Annual Conference.
Maureen Cataldo, RN, will assume Ms. Petralia’s responsibilities after she retires.
