Sentara employee goes beyond job description
Dressed in a stylish pajama set and a fuzzy pair of pink socks, Robin Gibson walked into a hair appointment on the Friday morning before New Year’s Eve.
She didn’t go to a fancy hair salon and wasn’t getting her hair done for a big New Year’s Eve bash. Her haircut took place in her room on the second floor of Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, the oncology unit.
“A haircut always makes me feel better,” Gibson said to Jenny Rizzotti, the hairstylist. “Take my hair off and make a wig out of this. I just love it! Do you have any gunk to put on it, so it stays?”
The makeshift haircut station included a hospital chair, cape and drop cloth. Gibson, a
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Portsmouth seeking vendors for Bloom Market, a new pop-up shop and business incubator leukemia patient, visits the hospital often for treatments. On her fourth day of chemotherapy, she got pampered with a stylish haircut courtesy of Rizzotti, a patient care technician at the hospital.
Rizzotti has worked at Sentara Virginia Beach General for three years, and her daily job duties include administering medications, monitoring treatments, bathing and keeping patients comfortable. Even though being a hairdresser isn’t part of her job description, Rizzotti offers complimentary hairdos to hospital patients. She’s been a hairdresser for 30 years and still works part-time at Pigtails and Crewcuts, a kids hair salon.
Her new hairdressing gig evolved when Gibson, her patient, became frustrated with her hair.
“I told Robin I could help style her hair,” Rizzotti said. “I said I’m a hairdresser and would love to do her hair.”
Rizzotti has now cut Gibson’s hair four times since last fall and said her favorite style was a mohawk that she dyed pink before having to shave her head at a follow