D. Beverly Foster hails from Manchester, Jamaica where she attended college and taught at the vocational level before migrating to the United States. Here, she earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from York College and then a Master of Science degree as a nurse practitioner from Hunter College.
She remembers one of her greatest influences, “My primary school principal Mr. Sanderson made me believe, all those many years ago, that I was a smart child who could achieve anything I set my mind to.”
It was when a friend encouraged her to go to nursing school that she got on the nursing path.
Ms. Foster is an adult nurse practitioner at the Zucker-Hillside Hospital, Northwell Health System where she has been for the past 14 years. Prior to this she worked as an ICU nurse at North Central Bronx Hospital.
In 2011 she was recognized for her humanitarian work with communities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Ms. Foster continues this work, returning every year.
For more than 15 years, Ms. Foster has coordinated and participated in medical missions to Grenada, Carriacou, Haiti, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Tanzania with the Organization for International Development. She is now the organization’s vice president and missions coordinator.
Yearly, she returns to Jamaica for medical missions and additionally every summer for a week, is a summer youth camp nurse there.
She also volunteers with her church’s health ministry.
Ms. Foster has also served as a United States Army Reserves Registered Nurse, 2nd Lieutenant for eight years and was honorably discharged in 2004.
“It has been a wonderful journey,” she says, about her long rewarding career, “that has allowed me to combine my love of traveling and experiencing different cultures with my compassion for people in need.”
