“While you need assistance discovering a brand new major care physician or understanding the assorted medical specialties we provide, name us—Susie Skiles or Virginia Stanwyck—the Arnett Clinic Affected person Referral Nurses,” reads the commercial from 1993.
Susie Skiles retired in November 2008 after greater than 15 years as a referral nurse and over 30 years as a nurse at Arnett Clinic. However would you consider that Virginia Stanwyck, RN, remains to be answering these calls, 29 years later—on the age of 85?
Since she was a teenager, Stanwyck knew she would work in healthcare. As a baby, she was the one enjoying nurse on the entrance porch, taking temperatures and making use of band aids.
When requested what has stored her going all these years, via practically half of IU Well being Arnett’s 100-year existence, Stanwyck shares, “I’m enormously blessed to have been in a position to look after and assist humankind via the nursing career for 65 years—45 of these years right here at Arnett Clinic.”
Stanwyck is a 1954 graduate of Lafayette Jefferson Excessive College. She attended nursing college on the Indianapolis Methodist College of Nursing in Indianapolis, graduating in June 1957. She recollects that nursing within the 50s and into the 60s included non-disposable syringes, needles, rubber gloves, fabric robes, and so forth.
Stanwyck started her nursing profession in surgical procedure on the former Montgomery County Culver Union Hospital in Crawfordsville, Ind. A number of strikes to Evanston, In poor health.; Goodland, Ind.; Argos, Ind.; after which finally again to her hometown of Lafayette in 1966 all afforded her alternatives in medical/surgical nursing. She has labored at an adoption company instructing college students in a new child care program, in Ophthalmology and as a faculty nurse for Ok-12. Stanwyck cared for kids with polio and in iron lungs throughout her time at Riley Kids’s Hospital, and she or he labored for eight years at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Urology, Instructional Providers and Orthopedics—all earlier than becoming a member of Arnett Clinic on June 13, 1977.
Stanwyck recollects that when she began at Arnett within the constructing at 2600 Greenbush St. in Lafayette, it was one constructing, with out the north wing and different areas like Pressing Care that might be added in later years. Charts have been on paper and saved in ‘the Chart Room.’ Huge appointment books with loads of well-sharpened pencils and many erasers have been normal.
Stanwyck initially labored in urology with medical doctors Schaaf, McKinley, Davis, Welch and, later, Perez. Stanwyck finally transitioned to the ENT Division with medical doctors Thomas Brennan, William Bremer and Stephen Henson, who lately retired.
Private connections have been at all times a part of Stanwyck’s work. She would make pencil notations on affected person charts of upcoming occasions talked about throughout their go to so she may make reference to it throughout a return go to. She despatched Valentine’s Day playing cards to youngsters she cared for.
In 1993, Stanwyck transferred to the Affected person Referral and Advocacy crew, an space of nursing that her numerous profession and penchant for including a private contact for every affected person had ready her for. Realizing that she is commonly a part of the expertise restoration course of, her calls typically begin with “How can I aid you?” After listening to the caller’s want or concern, an understanding and empathetic voice goes a great distance in easing pressure. Often, she follows up with “Inform me about it and let me see how I can assist.” If the decision is a priority or a criticism, telling the caller “I’m very sorry,” conveys to the caller that they matter.
Stanwyck says it’s so vital to easily take heed to calls associated to subjects like a affected person’s dissatisfaction with care, the perceived rudeness of employees, a supplier who didn’t hear, and so forth.
“To hear with the EAR in your hEARt. Affected person advocates can’t at all times remedy the issue, however they definitely do strive,” she shares.
The referral side of her job is aiding individuals searching for a major care supplier or who’ve a particular downside and aren’t positive who they need to see. Affected person wants additionally embody non-medical points equivalent to transportation help, discovering out there group assets, find out how to get assist with billing points, and so forth. Referral nurses additionally function a useful resource for medical workplaces to help with affected person wants.
Stanwyck believes that’s so exhausting to navigate healthcare for a lot of sufferers in at present’s world. Advances in know-how have drastically modified diagnosing and treating well being points. However, she says, “know-how can’t and should not substitute the private contact of healthcare. Nursing is a calling, not a job.”
Stanwyck shared {that a} particular highpoint in her profession was when she acquired the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses in Could 2014.
As we speak, at 85, Stanwyck works 4 afternoons per week. She takes Wednesdays off, as a result of that’s the day she dedicates to her different old flame, music. She particularly loves church music and has served as Director of Music at Bethany Presbyterian Church for the previous 42 years.
Stanwyck has two organic daughters, Catherine and Caryn, and two grandsons, all dwelling out of state. An adopted daughter, Lynn and her household—with 4 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-granddaughter— reside in Lafayette. In 1995, Stanwyck designed and constructed a home appropriate to maneuver her aged mother and father in along with her, and she or he cared for them till their deaths.
Stanwyck likes to journey and is wanting ahead to a number of journeys this 12 months—many rescheduled throughout the top of the pandemic.
On the subject of retirement and her hopes for the longer term, Stanwyck shares, “I pray to ‘finally’ retire, gracefully, with not too many tears, realizing that I’ve performed my greatest. I’m grateful for all of the fantastic crew members I’ve been privileged to work with over these a few years. My prayer is that, at present and thru all of the years to come back, God will bless all caregivers with the love, power and humility, that solely he may give, to maintain nursing the career because it was meant to be for the reason that mid-eighteen lots of.”
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