Legos:
at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where he practices today, while also working toward his BSN. Surprisingly, Ty learned to integrate the skills he gained in his former career into
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his nursing career. “Because I sew and knit, I’ve done everything from customizing trach covers to showing patients how to loom knit while they wait for their radiation treatment,” he said. “My life experiences defi nitely help me to be versatile when meeting my patients’ needs.” What some people don’t know about Ty is his love of Legos. From cars and trains to
tennis rackets and even buildings, he has been creating with Lego bricks for most of his life. An electronics/communications engineer during his undergraduate years and
An unusual, yet effective, nursing tool
Who would’ve thought Legos could help children undergoing radiation treatment? RN creator Victor Ty did. His unique Lego creations show another layer to nurses’ innovative nature. By Janice Petrella Lynch, MSN, RN
t age 40, Victor Ty, RN, left a 20-year career in textiles and apparel design and technology to pursue a degree in nursing. After earning his associate’s degree in less than two years, he became a staff nurse at the radiation oncology clinic
a dBaseIII+ programmer, he describes himself as “a tinkerer who enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together.”
A creation is born During his fi rst year as a nurse, Ty cared for a pedi- atric patient with autism and developmental dis- abilities who had been diagnosed with lymphoma. During his initial meeting with the young man and his family, Ty discovered his patient loved Legos. “I immediately thought of building a Lego model of the radiation machine, also known as the Lego Linear Accelerator or linac, to help him understand
10 Visit us at
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