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No one can accuse Nurse of the Week Renee Wascovich White of “sitting back and taking it easy.” At the height of the New Jersey coronavirus outbreak, the family and psychiatric NP and mother of four worked as a nurse at a COVID field hospital. In her full-time position, though, White is a long-term assistant prosecutor who specializes in veterans and other defendants suffering from mental illness and other behavioral or cognitive problems.

When COVID hit her state, White swiftly volunteered her services as a nurse. “There was a need…There were a lot of sick patients,” she said.

In addition to her other duties, White–who never seems to have too much on her plate–was recently named President of the Ocean County NJ Bar Association. Superior Court Judge Marlene Lynch Ford, Ocean County’s assignment judge and White’s former boss at the prosecutor’s office summed it up: “They say if you want the job done right, you pick somebody who’s a busy person.” White spent years pursuing her dual occupations as NP and attorney, and only quit her ER job after New Jersey passed a law forbidding prosecutors to hold any form of outside employment. She mused, “It’s squeezing all of the juice out of the lemon — every little bit. I did 10 years in the emergency room, and you just never know when your card’s going to get punched. You want to maximize every second you can and do the best you can with what you have. Life is short.”

Her dedication to nursing drove White to join the Assistant Prosecutor’s Association, so she could pursue her efforts to change the law preventing assistant prosecutors from holding jobs outside the legal profession. Her hard work paid off in 2010 when then-Governor Jon Corzine signed the change into law. “I was probably the poster child because I was working for free as a nurse on purpose so they would change the law,’’ White noted.

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For more details on Renee White, see Kathleen Hopkin’s full story on Asbury Park Press.

Koren Thomas
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