As National Nurses Week highlights the important role of these healthcare workers across the country each May, recognition for nurses like Brandon Brower should extend well beyond a single week.
Brower, 28, has spent the past six years building his career at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream hospital, growing from a critical care patient care associate during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic to an assistant nurse manager overseeing multiple critical care units.
This year, Brower was nominated for Northwell Health’s Truly Awards in both the initiative and collaborative categories, recognitions that honor nurses who demonstrate leadership, innovation and teamwork.
At the hospital, he is known for his teamwork, as well as his flexibility and patient-centered care. Outside the hospital, Brower has worked to strengthen ties with the community through a beach cleanup initiative he launched in Long Beach last year.
Brower’s path into nursing began long before he entered a hospital as a professional. As a child, he spent much of the first years of his life in and out of hospitals after being diagnosed with hypogammaglobulinemia, an immune deficiency disorder that left him vulnerable to infections.
“I was very sick as a baby, and it was kind of like the first three years of my life, and all the little memories that I ever possibly have blips of, were of nurses caring for me, and that was so sentimental,” Brower said. “It was the reason I decided to kind of go into the healthcare field.”
Nursing also became familiar through his mother, who worked in pediatrics.
A Rockville Centre native, Brower attended the University of Alabama, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in public health in December 2019. While there, he volunteered at Glen Haven Health and Rehabilitation Center in Northport and at Hospice of West Alabama.
After returning home, Brower still planned to pursue nursing. In April 2020, he joined LIJ Valley Stream as a critical care patient care associate, working in the intensive care unit while attending nursing school at Long Island University, Brooklyn.
“During the pandemic, because people couldn’t have visitors, nursing was that human connection and at the end of the day, nursing is about people,” Brower said. “It’s holding someone’s hand when they’re scared, explaining things in a way to that families understand on the phone, being able to have a patient FaceTime their family and really like making people feel seen in that time, and not just like treated as a patient, because how difficult of a timeframe that was.”
Brower graduated from LIU Brooklyn in August 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and was accepted into LIJ Valley Stream’s critical care fellowship program, a highly competitive specialty training program for nurses entering critical care.
Isabel Law, director of patient care services at LIJ Valley Stream, said Brower stood out early in his career for his willingness to help others and his ability to work collaboratively across departments.
“He has a positive outlook when things get rough,” Law said. “Nursing can be rough when we have difficult situations; we have critical care patients, and he’s the first one to jump in. It doesn’t matter where he is or what the patient is, he goes and helps out. He’s always had that willing spirit to help. And he makes people feel comfortable, which is something we admire.”
Law said Brower consistently received positive feedback while working throughout the hospital as a patient care associate and later excelled during the critical care fellowship. She said nurses and staff members viewed him as dependable, flexible and eager to support patients and colleagues regardless of the situation.
Earlier this year, Brower was promoted to assistant nurse manager in critical care, a leadership position in which he oversees telemetry services and supports nursing teams and supervisors within the unit.
Brower said the transition from bedside nursing into leadership has broadened his understanding of how hospitals operate behind the scenes, including staffing coordination and patient movement throughout the facility. He said the experience has strengthened his appreciation for teamwork among nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, patient care associates and environmental staff.
He described hospitals as systems built on constant collaboration, where every role contributes to patient care and safety.
Outside of the hospital, Brower has continued his commitment to service through community volunteer efforts.
Last year, after Labor Day, he organized a beach cleanup in Long Beach, near Edwards Boulevard, choosing the location for its accessibility and heavy foot traffic near the train station and beach entrance.
The event encouraged volunteers to help remove litter from the shoreline and surrounding areas while promoting environmental awareness among beachgoers. Brower said he plans to continue the cleanup initiative again this year.
“Every time we get a nurse spearheading something like that and get all the nurses involved, it’s inspirational,” Law said. “Some of those people who go to the beach are some of our patients, but just to have our name out there, and make sure that people know who we are, is very powerful, and it’s very impactful in a positive way.”
For Brower, nursing remains more than a profession. He described it as both a responsibility and a privilege to care for patients in difficult times.
