2018 Gold Medalist – Clinical Practice in a Small Hospital

Ronald Malit, BSN, RN, CPAN, CAPN, Charge Nurse, Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital

Before Ronald Malit became a nurse, he was an engineer. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering from Saint Louis University in Baguio, Philippines, he worked for Sony Corporation in his home country for two years.

“I felt deep in my heart that I needed to do more, that I needed to help people in such a way that engineering wouldn’t allow me to,” he says. “I come from a family of nurses – two siblings, cousins, a sister-in-law, and my wife is also a nurse. So you could say that nursing runs in the family.”

After immigrating to the United States, Ronald accepted a position as a certified nursing assistant in an assisted living facility in upstate New Jersey. While there, he earned a Diploma of Nursing at St. Francis School of Nursing in Jersey City, New Jersey.
“The residents at the assisted living facility encouraged me to become a nurse,” he says. “They provided the inspiration, and my wife provided support, standing behind me and encouraging me to become a successful nurse. Now here I am at the bedside, and I love it.”

Ronald’s specialty is perianesthesia nursing. In 2015, he had the opportunity to lead his unit in an evidence-based project investigating aromatherapy as a non-pharmaceutical means to prevent post-anesthesia nausea and vomiting. After presenting the results of the study at local and state conferences, he and his colleagues were invited to present it to Houston Methodist’s System-wide Clinical Practice and Central Supply Committee, which unanimously approved it for implementation across the entire eight-hospital Houston Methodist system. Their research results were published in the American Journal of Perianesthesia Nursing in August 2017.

“Ronald is an innovator and seeks best practices to take care of his patients,” wrote his nominator Chung-Win Fey, RN, BSN, OCN. “His study decreased our usage of Zofran and Phenergan, which are known to have serious side effects. Decreased utilization of medications to control post-operative nausea and vomiting means more provision of safe, quality care to patients and cost reduction as well.”

Ronald earned his bachelor’s degree in nursing from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2013. He holds advanced certifications as a post-anesthesia nurse (CPAN) and a certified ambulatory perianesthesia nurse (CAPN).

A nurse for 22 years, Ronald says that two things motivate him to come to work every day. “The first is my faith in God. I know that all nurses are an extension of God’s healing ministry here on earth,” he says. “The second is my passion and love for my specialty. I try to inspire others by being an example to them, by sharing what I know and what I’ve learned through all these years. I give 100 percent every day I come to work.”

Ronald won the Houston Methodist Hospital System Nurse Innovation Award in 2016, and was a Texas winner of the Shining Star Award from the American Board of Perianesthesia Nursing Certification in 2017. This year he was named among the Houston Chronicle’s Top 150 Nurses in the newspaper’s annual Salute to Nurses.

“If I may quote Maya Angelou, ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you have said, people will forget what you have done, but people will never forget how you’ve made them feel.’ I truly believe in that saying,” he says. “No matter how sick my patients are, no matter what kind of surgery they’re recovering from, they always appreciate the help I give him. Even though my coworkers come from different backgrounds and cultures, at the end of the day we make sure our patients receive the highest and safest quality of care.”

Ronald was invited by the American Board of Perianesthesia Nursing to submit an article and video encouraging his fellow nurses to pursue advanced certifications in their specialty. “I love my job as a nurse at the bedside and would like to engage in more research and evidence-based practice and find more innovative ways to help my patients,” he says.

He volunteers at the Houston Food Bank every year and encourages his family and friends to join him. He is also a member of the Houston Alliance of Volunteers in Medicine, a not-for-profit organization that offers volunteers the opportunity to help address basic health care needs in impoverished and medically underserved communities. Ronald is among a group of volunteers scheduled to fly to Asia in January 2019.

“Our aim is to promote and restore health by making basic medical services affordable and accessible through short-term medical missions,” he says. “I would love to have the opportunity to join more medical and surgical missions.”