A Mystery Writer, a Fitness Instructor, a Fly Fisherman and a Memoirist: Meet Four More VNSNY Staff Members with Hidden Talents!

Welcome to this second edition of Frontline VNSNY’s “Hidden Talents” series—featuring a quartet of VNSNY employees with some fascinating outside interests that you may not have known about!

Alicia Kennedy: Bringing a PT’s Eye to the World of Mystery Writing

By day, Alicia Kennedy is a VNSNY physical therapist in Nassau County—but during her off-hours, she also writes award-winning fiction. Her second career started back in 2010 with a story idea that wouldn’t go away. Since then, she’s turned out eight full-length mystery novels and a number of short stories, including the winning entries in the Writers’ Police Academy short story contests for 2016 and 2017.

Along the way, Alicia has found that certain skills apply to both writing and patient care. “Attention to detail are key in both activities,” she says. “You need to observe and listen to patients in order to know how to help them. And when you’re writing mysteries, you need to create an environment using compelling details that will capture and hold the reader’s interest.”

Alicia’s works include a series of six novels, published through Amazon (with over four thousand copies sold to date), that tell the continuing story of Lillian, a kidnapped physical therapist (coincidence?) and Nathan Miccoli, the detective assigned to her case. To learn more about her characters and their adventures, visit Alicia’s website at arkennedyauthor.com—or, better still, buy one of her novels!

Jennifer Brullo: Taking Exercise to the Next Level

Not only does Jennifer Brullo, Senior Vice President of VNSNY Partners in Care, start each day with a 4:30 a.m. workout, followed by long hours at the office—but she also finds time to serve as a fitness instructor several evenings each week, taking exercisers through their paces at Staten Island CrossFit, a workout center near where she lives.

“The CrossFit approach, used in thousands of affiliated gyms, combines different types of training—weights, gymnastics, functional fitness—to develop well-rounded athletes,” Jennifer explains. During seven hour-long shifts spread over three days, she teaches group classes and individual trainees, with participants ranging in age from 13 to 68. The combination of exercises and intensity levels are adjusted to meet individuals’ capabilities.

Jennifer began moonlighting as a fitness instructor in 2012, and has worked at her current CrossFit location since 2016. “Exercise is essential for me, both as a release and to energize me for the tasks ahead,” she says.

Brent Flack-Davison: A Fly Fisherman’s Travels

It’s a long way to the wilds of Alaska from the home in Harlem that Brent Flack-Davison, Director of Operations for VNSNY Home Care and an avid fly fisherman, shares with his wife and their six-month-old son. Yet every summer, Brent and a few friends make that trip, flying 4,000 miles to Anchorage and then boarding a pontoon plane that deposits them, along with their fishing tackle, supplies and a raft, on a river in “virgin Alaskan back-country.” The plane will come back to pick them up ten days later, some 90 miles downstream—hopefully with a boatload of sockeye salmon and rainbow trout in tow.

Brent’s next fly-fishing adventure will be a trip to Montana in July, but his angling isn’t limited to rivers and streams: He also travels to the Florida Keys each spring for saltwater fly fishing, where he often tangles with 100-pound tarpon. When he’s not on a major trip, he enjoys frequenting local freshwater destinations such as the Adirondacks, the Catskills, Maine, and Great Lakes tributaries, all offering what he calls “some pretty outrageous fishing, as well as a restorative break from the stress of the city.”

“When I was growing up in South Africa, my dad really instilled my love of fly fishing,” says Brent. In fact, his favorite recent fishing excursion was one he took with his dad, who traveled from South Africa to accompany him on a trip to the Mexican Yucatan. It was a chance for Brent to come full circle as his father’s fishing guide—something he also looks forward to doing with his own son in the coming years.

Carolyn Gartner: Chronicling Her Journey as a Hospice Social Worker

A graduate of NYU Film School, Hospice Social Worker Carolyn Gartner worked for several years as a television producer until she decided she could make a more significant contribution through social work. While studying for her master’s degree in social work, Carolyn spent almost a year as an intern with the New York City-based MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care program—an experience that led her to join VNSNY’s Brooklyn North hospice unit in 2013.

The emotional impact of her hospice social worker internship in Brooklyn inspired Carolyn to spend nearly three years writing Death, Brooklyn, and the Gritty Side of Grace, a book about her coming of age as a hospice clinician—serving patients at the end of life while learning life-changing lessons about community, culture, and caring. “Both darkly comic and spiritually uplifting,” reads the book description, “it’s the story of how, immersing herself in death, an irreverent Gen X-er found her life’s work.” Published in 2016 by Black Rose Writing, an independent publishing house based in Texas, Carolyn’s memoir has been praised by numerous readers, including former VNSNY Senior Medical Director Dr. James Avery, who noted, “This book will challenge your ideas about medical care, dying, and hospice.”

“A clinician needs to be able to take a step back and reflect on his or her practice,” says Carolyn. “Writing my book has really helped me to do that in my work at VNSNY, and has also provided me with an invaluable coping mechanism.”

Do you have a hidden talent that you’d like to share in Frontline, or do you know someone else at VNSNY who does? We’d love to hear about it. Please email us with your hidden talent!