Posted: February 5, 2010

Emergency rooms are busy places, especially at night. While doctors and nurses move quickly, sometimes frantically, to care for patients and save lives, there's someone at the center of it all making sure specialists are paged, that doctors are called, the phones are answered. That is Felix Soto, administrative associate in the emergency room at Sentara Leigh Hospital.

Soto is like an office manager - if your office was an emergency room filled to capacity with sick patients, family members, doctors and nurses.

"I keep things flowing so the doctors and nurses don't occupy themselves with calls. They have enough on their hands," Soto said.

It's not uncommon to find him with two phone receivers up to his ears at a given time.

Soto came to Hampton Roads with his wife in 1995 after doing the same sort of work in The Bronx in New York City. The job market was tough, but he took the position with Sentara in 1997 and has been there ever since.

"I enjoy working in the ER because I feel like I'm doing something - like I'm part of a big team," Soto said. "A nurse brought me coffee back from the Caribbean and said she could never sit in my chair because she would go crazy, but I would rather do this. I could never do what they do. They're amazing."

While Soto's job is to manage the administrative dealings in the ER, he handles the chaos with ease and has been known to jump in as a Spanish translator when needed. His parents are from Puerto Rico and Spanish is his first language.

"There was a young man, an undocumented immigrant, who got very sick and didn't go to the doctor because he didn't have insurance," Soto said.

The young man from Honduras was just 19 looking for work with his brother and Soto translated for the two as doctors spoke about his condition, which deteriorated quickly.

"He went into the ICU and there I was able to translate for them for several hours, letting him know what the doctor was trying to do. He passed away right there. You don't like to come across these situations, but you're glad to be there to help." nib

- Mary Worrell

Felix Soto and Ed Powers