Meet Our Nurses: Will Valentine, BSN, RN

Will Valentine Came to Visit and Decided to Make a Home at St. Mary’s.

Beginning as an agency nurse and then quickly rising to the position of nurse manager in our Med/Surg units, Will Valentine, BSN, RN has had a surprising and impressive journey here at St. Mary’s Healthcare.

But really, Will’s whole career has been a bit like this.

Originally from Long Island, Will attended SUNY Oneonta, earning a bachelor’s degree in biology, with no thought at all of becoming a nurse. But after working at Stony Brook University in the pathology lab, getting this insider’s view, he decided to enter the accelerated nursing program at Adelphi University. This would eventually lead to a position at Northwell Health.

Because his wife was from this region, Will found himself living in Galway and working in travel nurse positions at Saratoga Hospital, Albany Med, and then St. Mary’s. That’s when everything changed. After two years here, he got approached about the manager’s position. The hospital’s leadership had seen that this agency nurse was someone they wanted to keep. And Will had found by then that St. Mary’s was a place he wanted to call home.

“I never would have imagined as a kid being a nurse,” Will says. “But it’s given me back more than I ever could have imagined. At St. Mary’s, the place felt small but mighty. Everybody knew each other’s names, across all disciplines. I felt genuinely part of team, even though I was an agency nurse. And they saw something in me. When I was approached about the leadership position, I embraced that.”

Will feels like this position has provided him the best of both worlds: “I manage the team, but I still jump in at the bedside at times. And I really do enjoy being at the bedside and helping out.”

His own experience, he believes, says a lot about how St. Mary’s views its employees. “There’s room to grow here,” he says. “Hard work is noticed. And they allow for an excellent work-life balance, aware that everyone is human. When things come up in life that you wouldn’t expect, they’re willing to work with you.”

“I’ve never been in another hospital where I would have taken a management job,” Will adds. “At St. Mary’s there’s a support system. Here, it’s not the machine. It’s tailored to the individual and the needs that we have.”

In other words, he’s right where he wants to be.

To learn more about nursing at St. Mary’s Healthcare, visit our Nursing Careers page.