By Kelsey Durham
In 1978, Carmine DeSena made a choice that would end up changing his life and thousands of others.
As a 19-year-old Queens College student, he decided to accept an internship at North Shore-LIJ’s Zucker Hillside Hospital and began working with young adults who had recently experienced their first schizophrenic episode.
At the time, DeSena, who was born in Brooklyn but grew up in the Rockaways, was studying communications and sociology and had never considered a career in the mental health field, until he started working with the patients.
“What struck me is that we all seemed very similar,” he said. “We all wanted the same things out of life and I was very moved by these fellow kids, because that’s what we were — kids, who were dealing with this.”
As an intern at the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, DeSena provided patients with coaching and education that would help them lead normal lives and not be overcome by their diagnosis. Without the advancements that modern medicine has made today, DeSena said he became enthralled by discovering ways he could help people have a seamless transition back into the community after being diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.
A year later, Hillside offered DeSena a full-time position, laying the foundation for the 35 years of service that he has now invested in the hospital. Despite earning college degrees with other focuses, he said the experiences he had helping the patients made him realize his true calling.
“They really affected me because after a while, I saw that this disease kind of robs a person of who they are,” DeSena said. “I felt like this was a good thing to do, like I could really be helpful to people and accomplish something.”
Over the years, DeSena grew into different roles and took on new tasks at Hillside that further progressed how he could help people. In his current job as director of the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, he has overseen several employment programs, like the Sign On project, that offer jobs and job training to patients who want to earn a living.
Through Sign On, which DeSena took over when he became director of his department, patients make signs and other promotional items that are sold to businesses, which pays the salaries of the program’s workers. It also provides them with hands-on job training that propels them to secure a position outside the hospital’s programs.
In the more than three decades he has worked at Hillside Hospital, DeSena and his staff have helped tens of thousands of people turn their lives around after receiving a potentially crippling medical diagnosis. He has put in long hours and dedicated most of his life to helping others, but he said not all the recognition belongs to him.
“I couldn’t help them if I wasn’t given the mechanisms and I’m very grateful to my staff and to North Shore-LIJ, and this award really goes to all of them,” DeSena said. “I grew up in a very socially conscious time, with people always talking about how they’d like to make a difference, and I really think we make a difference every day. We improve the lives of people every day, and that’s kind of amazing.”
Reach reporter Kelsey Durham at 718-260-4573 or by e-mail at kdurham@cnglocal.com.
