Dr. P. Phillips Hospital celebrates 40 years of serving the community

Diana Assent walked out of Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital to find an elderly patient who wanted to leave after receiving bad news. 

Other nurses and security guards attempted to keep the agitated patient in the hospital or convince her to go back inside, but none were successful.

Assent gently approached the patient and asked to stand with her. They didn’t need to talk. They didn’t need to do anything. They just stood together. 

Well, until Assent realized she was standing on a pile of ants that were biting her feet. 

She suggested to the patient they go behind the emergency room to sit down and escape the ants. 

After about 45 minutes, the patient began opening up, sharing her thoughts and feelings with Assent until she calmed down and was ready to re-enter the hospital. 

That Christmas, the patient sent Assent a vase along with a note that Assent continues to store in the vase as a reminder of why she became a nurse.

“You were a life-saver during my night of fear at the hospital,” the note read. “Thank you for your kindness, your comfort and your love in my time of medical need.”

Assent always wanted the “difficult cases” when it came to patients. Yes, caring for them might come with more challenges, but more often than not, it also came with the greatest satisfaction as the patients grew to love her and requested her as their nurse.

After working at Dr. P. Philips Hospital since its opening 40 years ago, Assent, now the administrative supervisor working the night shift, has seen thousands of patients come and go but she said the standard of care, the support of hospital leadership and her dedication to the job have never wavered.

For Assent, nursing was her calling. The only other career she considered was teaching, but after being raised in the Caribbean and coming to the United States and realizing how students were not obedient in school as they were in the Caribbean, she said education was not the path for her. 

“I changed my mind right away,” she said. “Nursing is not a glamorous job, but you have those incredible moments that are so satisfying when you are able to put a smile on somebody’s face, just sitting and holding somebody’s hand for a moment when they have gotten bad news or rejoicing in their own happiness. DPH is not just a workplace. It’s a place for healing. It’s a place where you give care and you care.”

Photo by Liz Ramos

Assent’s health care career started 46 years ago, when she graduated from City College in New York and began working in Mount Sinai Hospital. Two years later, she moved to the Sunshine State and started what would become a 44-year career with Orlando Health at Holiday Hospital.

“When I came here and got my interview, I had a feeling this was going to be the place I wanted to be,” she said. “I never had any doubt that I was going to be going anywhere else.”

Sitting in the cafeteria after a 12-hour night shift, Assent pulled out her original hospital badge for what was then Orlando Regional Medical Center. Her smile in the photo on the badge from 1981 was just as big as the smile she had Friday, Aug. 29.

In those 44 years, Assent’s only change in hospital was when Holiday Hospital closed for a renovation to turn it into Orlando Health — Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. 

She transferred to the newly built Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, known as Sand Lake Hospital at the time of its opening 40 years ago until 2007. The name change was to recognize Dr. Phillips Charities’ contributions to the hospital, including Dr. P. Phillips who originally provided land for the hospital’s construction.

“We felt very family-oriented,” she said of the hospital. “You knew people by face and names. If anything would go wrong in the hospital, if someone had a tragedy or some mishap, we would go around and collect things and donations, and that’s how it was.”

The hospital has grown in its 40 years, first with a new patient tower that added 330,000 square feet and 140 beds in 2008 and again in 2020 with a 42,000-square-foot expansion that brought the total number of beds to 285. 

Assent recalled the days when the pharmacy wasn’t open 24/7 and would close at 11 p.m., forcing administrative supervisors on the night shift to fill medications on their own. The orders were written rather than sent electronically. They used beepers to notify each other because cell phones didn’t exist yet. 

If the fire alarm went off, the staff would have to silence it and let the fire department in. If someone died, the staff took the bodies to the morgue rather than the separate team that exists today. 

“Sometimes, I don’t even know how we did it, but we did it,” she said. 

She’ll never forget going the extra mile for one patient who came into the hospital late at night and wanted something to eat. She went to the cafeteria with a few other nurses on the unit to prepare something for the patient. 

Assent went into the walk-in freezer, and the door shut. She pushed on the door. She pulled on the door. It wouldn’t budget. 

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, am I going to die in here? This cannot be happening,’” she said. “I said, ‘This is not the way I want to go out.’”

Her fingers were getting colder and stiff. She was peering out the window of the freezer to flag down one of her colleagues, but they were nowhere to be found. Her phone wasn’t working in the freezer. She just kept knocking, hoping someone would find her.

Her colleagues heard the faint knocking and found her with her face pressed against the glass trying to get someone’s attention. She finally was free.

When explaining the situation to her manager the following day, she and the manager returned to the freezer to find a door handle allowing the door to be pushed open. She couldn’t believe it.

Now pre-made boxed meals are available for patients.

“I can laugh now, but I wasn’t laughing then,” she said with a chuckle. “Needless to say, I’ve never gone back there.”

Despite the growth, Assent said she feels accepted and valued at the hospital. The growth has given her as well as other employees opportunities to rise within the health system and have growth in their careers.