Elizabeth Melita, RN

They say adversity is sometimes the best teacher. It’s even better when someone who has overcome their own challenges can use the lessons they learned to help smooth the path for someone else. That’s been the case for Western Connecticut State University graduate Elizabeth Melita.

Melita, who grew up in Newtown, began “running with the wrong pack” in high school, and when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to graduate, her parents dished out some tough love. They insisted that she move, on her own, to another state near enough to relatives if there was an emergency, but not with them, and become self-sufficient. “I moved to Delray, Florida,” Melita recalled. “I had to do everything on my own, from finding a place to live, how to register for high school, get a job, and pay my own bills. It wasn’t like there were cellphones available back then in the late 1990s, so I had to figure out everything on my own.”

Figure it out, she did. Melita amassed the credits necessary and transferred them back to Newtown High School, which awarded her a degree in 1995. Still in Florida, Melita was working in a delicatessen. She wanted to go to college, but couldn’t even afford a word processor. She wrote a heartfelt essay about her personal growth to Castleton State University in Vermont, which had previously accepted her before her high school grades plummeted, and she was admitted. After three years, she transferred to Monmouth University for her final year, and in 2000, she earned a degree in Anthropology from Monmouth.

Melita returned to Connecticut and found a job in the Finance Department at Georgia Pacific. She said her Anthropology degree contributed to her success there because it was really focused on culture — respecting other people’s cultures — and that came into play at her job. From there, Melita found opportunities with increasing responsibility levels at Otis Elevator, and then at Cendant as a relocation specialist.

After her marriage and the birth of her daughter, she realized she did not want her child raised by someone else at a daycare, and found a job on the night shift at New Milford Hospital as an Emergency Room clerk. While there, Melita recognized that health care could provide her with a good job that offered flexibility and that she believed would build upon her existing skill set.

Elizabeth Melita (front right) with Chemotherapy Infusion Nurses at Praxair Cancer Center.

“Nursing is really a customer service job, but it’s more technical and hands on,” she said. “Whether it’s someone needing to relocate for their job or a patient, my instinct is, ‘I want to help you, I want to make you happy,’” she added.

Decision made, Melita started taking Nursing classes at Naugatuck Valley Community College. She graduated in 2012 with a 3.9 GPA, and a three, two and one-year-old at the time. She began working at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, and determined that she wanted to go for her RN-to-BSN degree to enhance her opportunities.

“WCSU was really the only choice for me for my bachelor’s,” Melita said. “It’s one of the top programs out there. A lot of WCSU’s Nursing professors have real-world nursing experience and provide that knowledge to the students. NVCC taught me well for my clinicals, but WCSU gave me more of a cultural, well-rounded approach to nursing. They were fabulous, especially as a nontraditional student,” she added. “Everyone I encountered was amazing, and the WCSU Nursing Department is a family. I’m still friends with so many of them, which is incredibly helpful in my current job because I need resources and referral sources. WCSU gave me the opportunity to build a network.”

While she was pursuing her BSN at WCSU, Melita took a job as an infusion nurse at Danbury Hospital. After her 2016 graduation from WCSU, Melita continued to work at Danbury Hospital, now Nuvance.

Elizabeth Melita (second from left) with Praxair Cancer Center Staff.

In 2019, the Praxair Cancer Center at Nuvance hired a new director. “She was a wonderful surgeon, and sadly, needed the services of the Cancer Center herself,” Melita said. “During her treatment, she really advocated for the creation of a Nurse Navigator position, which has been the standard in breast cancer treatment for almost 30 years. Now you’re just starting to see it in other medical specialties. A navigator comes in to help patients by giving another layer of support. Not only emotional support, but by removing barriers to treatment that might occur because of the overburdened system.”

Melita was at a place in her career where she could have transitioned into a nurse manager role, but she didn’t want to be a people manager; instead, she wanted to find a way to provide needed customer service to patients. Serendipitously, a Nurse Navigator role was created at Nuvance.

“Think about it, my relocation experience was very similar — helping people get from where they started to where they needed to end up. I am able to do the same thing for my patients — getting them from the starting place of shock and fear from their diagnosis to helping them move smoothly through all the tests, specialists and treatments to get them to their end goal of hopefully restored health. I want to be their champion and cheerleader, and get my patients through this struggle, even if it doesn’t always end up with the outcome we all hope for.”

Having faced uncertainty and adversity as a teen and successfully overcoming all of her own hurdles has provided Melita the tools she needs to help her patients do the same.

Melita said, “The best part of my job is the people I meet,” she said. “I wouldn’t be meeting them if they didn’t have cancer. I see their strength, resilience and tenacity, and it’s beautiful to be able to witness it and try to help them navigate through it. My patients give me so much more than I give them.”

Western Connecticut State University changes lives by providing all students with a high-quality education that fosters their growth as individuals, scholars, professionals, and leaders in a global society. Our vision: To be widely recognized as a premier public university with outstanding teachers and scholars who prepare students to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.