Nurses: the heart of health care

SPONSORED BY

HONORING SOUTHERN ILLINOIS NURSES WHO BRAVED THE COVID-19 FRONTLINES

W

hat a year it has been.

All of us at Heartland Regional Medical Center knew Southern Illinois had some of the very best nurses – the most professional, the most dedicated and the most compassionate health care providers anywhere.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, we failed to truly grasp the amazing level of their professionalism, dedication and compassion. Now we realized just how blessed we are to have each and everyone of them caring for us, our loved ones and our communities.

That is one of the reasons Heartland Regional Medical Center is proud to continue as the Presenting Sponsor of the “Nurses: The Heart of Health Care” initiative. It is an honor and privilege to recognize some of our region’s elite nurses.

The nurses recognized in this effort cross a variety of specialties, facilities and communities. Some practice in regional settings or countywide efforts, while others work at individual hospitals, clinics and in our schools. Some are honored as a unit, others individually. Regardless of whether they work at Heartland Regional or any of the other outstanding medical facilities in our region, these professionals are a perfect example of the diversity and extensive reach of health care across Southern Illinois.

Nursing is more than a job or a profession. It is a calling; one brought to life in the work and lives of each of our “Nurses: The Heart of Health Care” honorees. We are proud of each and every one of them.

Ed Cunningham is the CEO of Heartland Regional Medical Center.

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| SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 | NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, we failed to truly grasp the amazing level of their professionalism, dedication and compassion.

Now we realized just how blessed we are to have each and everyone of them caring for us, our loved ones and our communities.

PROVIDED

The nursing staff of Heartland Regional.

Heartland Regional’s nursing staff deserves recognition, CNO says L LES O’DELL

eaders at Heartland Regional Medical Center had a difficult time singling out a few nurses to nominate for recognition.

Their solution? Recommend the entire nursing staff of the Marion-based facility for the honor.

“Teamwork is the bedrock of nursing,” Heartland Regional Medical Center Chief Nursing Officer Barrie Questelle explains in her nomination of the dozens of nurses she supervises. “The career we have chosen demands close collaboration with our patients, their families, their physician and perhaps foremost, among nurses.”

Questelle says nursing is a collaborative effort. With that comes not only support and an increased level of profes-

sionalism, but also better care for patients.

“As a nurse at Heartland Regional, you’re never here all by yourself,” she says. “It’s never just about you.”

She adds that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of nurses became obvious, as did the dedication of the Heartland Regional nursing corps.

“Throughout the pandemic our entire nursing team willingly stepped up to fill critical roles in different departments and clinics,” she says. “When elective procedures, surgeries, lab and imaging services were paused, our nurses willingly embraced new duties and responsibilities.

During sudden patient surges in the ER or ICU, our nurses stepped forward in the face of an unknown virus and at great risk to themselves and their families.”

She says the cooperation among nurses focuses on help-

ing one another and to further elevate patient care.

“Every morning team leaders gather from across our network for a daily Safety Huddle. We discuss operational details and challenges so everyone is on the same page.

Each meeting, without fail, someone will share a story of appreciation for a nurse or nurses, who went stepped forward to help a patient or co-worker,” she says.

Most of all, Questelle says all of Southern Illinois can be proud of the nurses who provide care.

“The nurses at Heartland Regional Medical Center are second to none,” she explains, using nurses’ dedication during the pandemic as an example of their commitment to care. “They set aside feelings of fear and stress, while working long shifts in protective gear. I’m proud to serve beside them on Team Heartland Regional.”

‘The nurses at Heartland Regional Medical Center are second to none. They set aside feelings of fear and stress, while working long shifts in protective gear. I’m proud to serve beside them on Team Heartland Regional.’

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| SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 | NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE

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| SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 | NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE

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PHOTO BY KAROLINA GRABOWSKA FROM PEXELS

CAITLIN HEANEY WEST

From New England to the

front lines of COVID-19 battle in Los Angeles JILL HARMACINSKI

The Eagle-Tribune (North Andover, Mass.)

LOS ANGELES — Right before Christmas, 0DU\ (OOHQ 'HYLQH UHFHLYHG KHU ¿UVW GRVH RI WKH COVID-19 vaccine.

“Your frontline workers are EXHAUSTED ... This a small light in the longest and darkest tunnel,” wrote Devine, 25, in a Facebook post announcing her vaccination to family and friends.

Devine, a 2013 graduate of Salem High School in New Hampshire and a registered nurse, is among frontline workers in Los Angeles — where COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are soaring.

California remains at or near the top of the list of states with the most new cases per capita. Even with vaccines now being administered, albeit slowly, it is expected to take time to slow the virus.

In Salem, Mary Ellen’s mother Sue Ann Devine couldn’t be more proud of the work her daughter is doing on the West Coast.

Mary Ellen previously worked as a cardiac care nurse at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and is now primarily assigned as a labor and delivery nurse there.

Sue Ann said she tries to speak with her daughter by phone as often as possible but said she and her co-workers have all been working long hours to NHHS VKLIWV ¿OOHG DQG KHOS SDWLHQWV She said Mary Ellen, who has lived in California for several years now, usually comes home for Christmas or family goes to see her in California.

But this year, along with COVID-19 precautions

regarding travel, Mary Ellen and her hospital coworkers were prohibited from using vacation time due to hospital volume.

“The hospital is really stretched at this time and WKH\ DUH DOO EHLQJ DVNHG WR ¿OO LQ ZKHQ QHHGHG ´ Sue Ann Devine said.

In early January, 10 of Mary Ellen’s co-workers tested positive for COVID-19 and Cedars-Sinai ran short on oxygen supply for patients, she noted.

While a graduate of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, Mary Ellen has long said the health occupation classes at Salem High were vital in preparing her for a nursing career.

“That’s where she really got her spark for nursing,” her mother said.

Sue Ann said she knows her daughter is taking all the necessary COVID-19 precautions and she “has peace” about her work.

“This is her calling. This is her sparkle. This is what she was meant for,” Sue Ann said. “I know she is helping people and this is where she needs to be right now. I have serenity in that. I am very, very proud.”

The past year did have a huge bright spot for Mary Ellen. She and her boyfriend, Brandon Loureiro, got engaged to be married. The couple lives in Manhattan Beach, California.

“So 2020 wasn’t all horrible for them,” Sue Ann said, with a laugh.

She said her daughter’s advice to the family includes wearing masks, frequent hand washing and social distancing. She also said not to attend “social gatherings or get-togethers with extended family,” Sue Ann said.

“She is very optimistic about the vaccine and is hoping that will help turn the corner,” she said.

MEDICAL PHOTO CREATED BY RAWPIXEL.COM - WWW.FREEPIK.COM

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| SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 | NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE

USING ART

TO COPE Facing helplessness and fatigue, some health care workers seek out creative outlets

MAKEDA EASTER

L

Los Angeles Times

OS ANGELES – “COVID Fatigue” is how surgeon Dr. Frank Candela titled his painting — a weary blue face enveloped in a cloud of black.

During the winter COVID-19 surge in L.A., Candela sent the painting to Times health reporter Soumya Karlamangla, who tweeted: “When I asked him what inspired the image, he said, ‘my colleagues faces.’”

As the pandemic stretched toward the oneyear mark, with about half a million deaths in the U.S. alone, health care workers were increasingly burned out and traumatized.

For some, staying creative is a form of escape, a way to cope with stress or a strategy for sharing a message of hope with their comPXQLW\ 7KH 7LPHV VSRNH WR ¿YH KHDOWK FDUH workers — who are also a painter, a choreographer, a photographer or an illustrator — to learn more about how the pandemic has affected their artistry.

C. Michael Gibson: interventional cardiologist, researcher, educator, painter In Dr. C. Michael Gibson’s oil painting ³7KH /DVW 6KLIW ´ D OLQH RI GDUN ÀRDWLQJ VLOKRXHWWHV GULIWV R൵ LQWR D KD]\ OLJKW *LEVRQ shared the painting, which was auctioned for $25,000 to support health care workers, on Twitter last March, adding: “Welcome home to all of our courageous #CoronaHeroes who PDGH WKH XOWLPDWH VDFUL¿FH ´ The isolation of the pandemic has meant more time to look inward. For Gibson, “The

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Last Shift” is a meditation on spirituality and vulnerability, “not afraid to talk about it, knowing that so many other people were probably facing the same concerns about where’s everyone going after this. Are they going to be OK? All those issues we all struggle with.”

As a practicing physician, Gibson spends one day each week doing procedures, opening up people’s arteries. It’s a visual job, he said. ³<RX¶UH ORRNLQJ DW D VFUHHQ DQG ¿QGLQJ WKHVH blockages and making them better, so we’re kind of visual athletes. And being a painter has always made me a better visual athlete.”

In addition to his work as a cardiologist, researcher and educator, he paints most nights and weekends at his studio in Natick, Massachusetts. Art is his way to communicate nonverbally and “allow a lot of all those feelings, emotions and right sided things that are all pent up in there to come out.”

During the pandemic, Gibson has created about 10 paintings. About half are directly related to the pandemic. He was particularly inspired by a nurse in a Dove commercial, struck by her exhaustion and the marks the mask left on her face. He said it captured “not just the outward appearance but the inward appearance of so many health care workers who’ve been traumatized by the violence.”

Other paintings have been more abstract, but still the pandemic showed up in subtle ways — like the increased use of grays, red and blues. “They’re not very happy paintings,” he said.

A recent ray of light: He helped to administer vaccines one weekend in Central Falls, Rhode Island. “It reminded me why I was a doctor. It was a really good experience.”

| SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 | NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE

G. Sofia Nelson: pulmonologist and choreographer As a physician who specializes in the reVSLUDWRU\ V\VWHP 'U * 6R¿D 1HOVRQ VSOLWV her time between clinic and hospital settings in Oxnard and Camarillo, California. When making hospital rounds before the pandemic, Nelson typically saw about 15 patients each day. But during the recent COVID-19 surge in Southern California, Nelson saw between 50 and 60 patients every day.

Nelson, 33, would often return home from work, not because she had treated every patient, but because she was exhausted. There was also triaging, she said, deciding which paWLHQWV FRXOG EHQH¿W IURP FRQWLQXHG WUHDWPHQW Flow arts, a form of dance that involves prop manipulation, such as hoops, or juggling, was one way Nelson coped with the stress.

“It’s been long days, but it’s very powerful having something to come home to, for which , FDQ SUHWW\ PXFK VKXW R൵ P\ EUDLQ , FDQ MXVW really focus on my body,” Nelson said. “The more I’m working my mind and the more I’m thinking, the harder my job becomes, the more I actually have to dance to maintain that balance.”

She’s also the director of Lumia Dance Company, which she launched in 2019 as a way to give back to the arts community. In December the company premiered its debut show virtually, “Light Through Darkness,” featuring GDQFH DHULDO DUWV DQG ¿UH VSLQQLQJ ² DOO ¿OPHG in an empty North Hollywood theater.

Nelson choreographed three dances in the show over several months, typically rehearsing on Zoom during evenings and weekends.

One dance was a post-apocalyptic hoop piece about the pandemic experience, another was inspired by what she described as the government’s increased militarization and fascism, and a duet explored the pitfalls of social media.

Now that the show is over, Nelson mainly dances at home as a form of movement meditation, reaching the same type of head space many surgeons use in their practice, she said.

“It’s really important that we create a culture where physicians are encouraged to have creative outlets like this. We create a society in which not just physicians, but anybody, really has that kind of opportunity.”

Chip Thomas: family physician and photographer For the last 33 years, Dr. Chip Thomas has worked on the Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the U.S., spanning parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, and also among the hardest hit by COVID-19. As a family practice physician, Thomas, 63, has treated generations of families in the area. Also a street photographer who goes by “jetsonorama,” Thomas says art and medicine go hand in hand.

“When I see people in the clinic, I’m attempting to create an environment of wellness within the individual. And when I am putting DUW XS LQ WKH FRPPXQLW\ ,¶P UHÀHFWLQJ WKH beauty of the community back to people.”

In 2009, Thomas began creating public installations of his photography, using spaces throughout the Navajo Nation as a way to share messages. Some of Thomas’ prior work focused on public health awareness, including commentary on people’s food choices.

During the pandemic, he created large-scale public service announcements posted on abandoned buildings and billboards encouraging residents to wear a mask and stay positive despite the tough times.

Last November, Thomas published a 115page multimedia zine called “Pandemic Chronicles, Volume 1,” inviting visual artists and poets to respond to how the pandemic GLVSURSRUWLRQDWHO\ D൵HFWHG WKHLU FRPPXQLWLHV Thomas shot much of the photography in the ]LQH GXULQJ ZHHNHQGV DQG KLV WLPH R൵ ZRUN One image, of an older woman and child in a masked embrace, is a family Thomas has worked with since 1987.

The young girl in the photo is about 9. “I started photographing her when she was 6 months old,” Thomas said. “One of the things I love about that image, other than the fact that they’re both wearing masks, is they’re touching. ... With social distancing and the emphasis on mitigation measures, a lot of people don’t have an opportunity to touch and embrace like that.”

Thomas was recently invited to create a project funded by the United Nations, working with activists to create an art-based response on the Navajo Nation to the mental health challenges caused by the pandemic. The project’s title, “Pandemic as Portal,” is based on an essay of the same name by Indian author Arundhati Roy.

Tessa Moeller: nurse and painter

Working as a nurse in a Miami trauma burn unit during the early days of the pandemic, when personal protective equipment ran low and there were many unknowns about COVID-19, was terrifying for Tessa Moeller.

Painting was an outlet to handle the high stress of the hospital, where she typically worked three days a week. “Sometimes I would come home, especially after a particularly scary day, and I would shower (and) go right to painting.”

When Moeller, 29, wasn’t working in the hospital, she juggled commissions and created art to express how she felt in the moment.

Last March, she began a COVID-19 series of paintings of nurses she knew, including one of a colleague who works in ICUs inserting catheters and another who became infected with COVID-19 while studying to become a nurse anesthesiologist.

Dr. G. Sofia Nelson, a pulmonologist who sees dance as a way to keep balance in her life, uses dance hoops in her Newbury Park, California, backyard.

JAY L. CLENDENIN, LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Last May, Moeller moved to Portland, Oregon, and began working in an oncology unit.

In the early days of the pandemic, the fear and confusion of last spring emerged through her use of bright reds and expressive brushstrokes. After moving, Moeller’s paintings became more detailed and controlled with “a lot of neurotic brushstrokes,” she said.

“That really sort of portrays how I was feeling, and I think a lot of nurses were feeling, from the frantic beginning to them just becoming very careful and controlled and anxious and making sure that everything is very — trying to exert control, when you don’t have control on your situation.”

Now based in Boston, Moeller has comDrawing landscape pieces and comics is pleted about 20 paintings in her COVID-19 a relaxing escape, a way to “feel like I have series and is preparing to enter an MFA studio control and creating something that feels productive that’s also fun,” Li said. art program at Syracuse University.

Maintaining an art practice is crucial for the Bing Li: medical resident and \HDU ROG ³:H DOO VHH D ORW RI VX൵ HULQJ WKDW doesn’t necessarily have a meaning,” Li said. illustrator “But then the desire to make art is kind of like Drawing was part of Dr. Bing Li’s life before a desire to put a meaning into something.” she considered studying medicine. Last year, Although most of Li’s art practice doesn’t as a medical resident who works in a Brooklyn intersect with her work in health care, she made emergency room, Bing turned to art as a way a comic last November based on a conversaof managing the grueling hours and pervading tion between medical residents working through feeling of helplessness while New York was COVID-19. “I’d like to maybe eventually make the epicenter of COVID-19.

PRUH VWX൵ WKDW¶V UHODWHG WR ZKDW ZH¶UH H[SHUL

encing in health care, but it also feels like you’re kind of reliving the moment, and you may not feel necessarily ready for that.”

Since the pandemic began, Li has made close to 30 pages of a lighthearted web comic described as being “about adventure, friendship and a weird squishy creature.”

Although the pandemic doesn’t show up directly in the work, experiences of the last year are often prioritized in the storytelling — themes of working collectively for the greater good, Li said, and “having a society that will FDUH IRU HDFK RWKHU UDWKHU WKDQ D VHO¿ VK VRFLHW\ where people care just about their individual comforts.”

NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE | SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 |

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CONNIE BUSH T Pinckneyville Community Hospital

RN, BSN

LES O’DELL

hroughout the past year, we have all heard about nurses being on the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic.

And if there is a front line to the front line, Connie Bush, RN, BSN, of Pinckneyville Community Hospital, has been there.

In addition to serving as staff nurse in the emergency department and surgery, Bush’s role at the Perry County facility is infection prevention.

That means over throughout 2020 and so far this year, she has been directly responsible for keeping patients, staff and medical providers safe. It is a task she has faced with not only a sense of duty but also one that has been very personal to her: she lost her father due to COVID-19.

“It has been an uphill battle, but hopefully, we are coming to an end of this,” she says.

A 29-year veteran of nursing, Bush has been at Pinckneyville Community Hospital for 25 years.

“I didn’t originally plan on staying here long, but here I am,” she explains.

“I fell in love with my coworkers and the doctors I work with. We’re a small hospital, but we’re a great hospital.”

Bush, 58 of Ziegler, says it was not uncommon for

her to put in 60 hourweeks during the height of the pandemic, focusing on keeping current with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines as well as those from the Illinois Department of Public Health and making sure hospital staff are kept up-to-date.

Additionally, she scheduled all of the COVID-19 tests for patients as well as hospital staff and track those who have tested posi-

tive for the virus.

“It’s been a constant job,” Bush says, adding that many works she worked as many as 60 hours. “There for a while I was exhausted, but I just had to keep going.”

Yet, Bush calls the work rewarding.

“When you see someone who has had COVID, but they’re back and they are healthy, it’s a good feeling,” she says. “I just love being a nurse. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

You are a valued member of our team. Thank you for being the amazing nurse you are!

Connie Bush, RN Infection Prevention

‘When you see someone who has had COVID, but they’re back and they are healthy, it’s a good feeling. I just love being a nurse. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’

NURSES: THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE | SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021 |

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Registered nurse Lizzy Murphy, left, asks questions as she checks in her mother, fellow nurse Lynn Griesmaier, before giving her the second dose of COVID-19 vaccination at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago on Jan. 8.

Oncology nurse receives COVID-19 vaccine from her nurse daughter

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HEIDI STEVENS | Chicago Tribune

s soon as the COVID-19 vaccine became available to her department, Lynn Griesmaier, nurse coordinator for breast medical oncology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, jumped at the opportunity. ³, WRRN WKH ¿UVW DYDLODEOH VSRW ´ *ULHVPDLHU VDLG ³, VDLG µ,¶OO JR DQ\ZKHUH DW DQ\ WLPH ¶´ $V VRRQ DV DGPLQLVWHULQJ WKH &29,' YDFFLQH EHFDPH DQ RSWLRQ QXUVH /L]]\ 0XUSK\ HGXFDWLRQ FRRUGLQDWRU DW 1RUWKZHVWHUQ 0HPRULDO +RVSLWDO MXPSHG DW WKH RSSRUWXQLW\ ³:H¶UH MXVW VR H[FLWHG WR KDYH D YDFFLQH ´ 0XUSK\ VDLG ³, ZDV OLNH µ$V PDQ\ KDQGV DV WKH\ QHHG /HW¶V JHW WKLV LQ SHRSOH¶V DUPV ¶´ *ULHVPDLHU VLJQHG XS WR UHFHLYH KHU ¿UVW GRVH RI WKH YDFFLQH DW D P RQ 'HF 0XUSK\ VLJQHG XS WR ZRUN RQH RI 1RUWKZHVWHUQ¶V YDFFLQH WDEOHV DOO GD\ RQ 'HF *ULHVPDLHU LV 0XUSK\¶V PRP 7KH WZR KDYH OHDQHG RQ HDFK RWKHU DQG GUDZQ VWUHQJWK IURP HDFK RWKHU DQG VKDUHG WHDUV DQG WKH RFFDVLRQDO OXQFK ZKHQ WKHUH¶V WLPH DQG ULGHV WR ZRUN PDVNHG ZLWK WKH FDU ZLQGRZV GRZQ DV WKH QRYHO FRURQDYLUXV FUDVKHG WKURXJK RXU OLYHV LQIHFWLQJ PRUH WKDQ PLOOLRQ ,OOLQRLVDQV ³$W WKH EHJLQQLQJ , ZDV NHHSLQJ D ORJ µ+RZ PDQ\ SDWLHQW H[SRVXUHV GR \RX WKLQN \RX KDG WRGD\"¶´ *ULHVPDLHU VDLG ³$QG WKHQ , ZDV FKHFNLQJ LW DJDLQVW WKH VWDWLVWLFV RQ 79 , PHDQ LW ZDV QXWV , ZDV UHDOO\ VR ZRUULHG DERXW KRZ WKLQJV ZHUH JRLQJ IRU KHU ´ *ULHVPDLHU ZDV LQ DZH VKH VDLG RI KHU GDXJKWHU¶V FDOP DQG KHU OLJKWQLQJ IDVW PDVWHU\ RI &29,' SURWRFROV DQG SHUVRQDO SURWHFWLYH HTXLSPHQW QHHGV DQG VHYHUH UHVSLUDWRU\ LOOQHVVHV ³,¶YH EHHQ D QXUVH IRU D YHU\ ORQJ WLPH ´ *ULHVPDLHU VDLG )RUW\ \HDUV WR EH H[DFW ³, MXVW NHSW WKLQNLQJ µ+RZ GRHV VKH

‘I gave birth to her.

And she’s going to keep me alive.’

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