Kim Litzen

Kim Litzen, RN-BC, BSN

at Baylor Scott & White Health

JENNY TWITCHELL Special to The Eagle

In her 29 years of nursing, Kim Litzen, RN-BC, BSN, has lived by the motto, “variety is the spice of life,” as she’s enjoyed the many transitions and moves that she’s made in her career.

“I’ve seen a lot of changes, from paper charting to electronic charting, and just the variety where I have worked, the places,” Litzen said. “I’ve worked everywhere from a small town in upstate New York to North Carolina, then back to New York, then back to Texas, so state to state it varies in how they do things,” Litzen said. “Also, just the technology, we have gotten so much better in the NICU, being able to help babies at a younger age.”

Currently, Litzen is a clinic charge nurse for Baylor Scott & White Clinic, where she’s the clinical liaison between the manager and the clinical staff in the Arrington Road and Navasota offices. Her position consists of a little bit of everything in nursing – she helps teach new employees, works with patients when she’s needed, makes phone calls, attends leadership meetings, and enjoys the variety of interacting with the doctors, the manager, and the patients.

Litzen has also previously worked 13 years in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU), pediatrics, convenient care (similar to urgent care), and now she’s in family medicine.

When Litzen worked in the NICU, she had to learn the balance between growing close to families who depended on her while also not carrying the sadness and burdens home with her.

“You become family with those who had babies eight weeks early because you become their lifeline,” she said. “When they leave, it is so gratifying. But there was a lot of sadness that I saw. It was sad to think logically that sometimes the baby’s life was not going to be what the parents expected it be.”

When it came to caring for a baby who only weighed grams, Litzen said she learned that as a nurse, her priority was the baby, so worry and sadness could not interfere.

“The babies were tiny, and parents were afraid,” Litzen said. “There were times where I would hand a mom her baby for the first time and the baby was two weeks old, but she had never been able to hold it before; boy, what a feeling that was. I always told patients, ‘You’re entering an emotional rollercoaster. It might feel like we are taking three steps forward and four steps back.’”

One of Litzen’s talents is putting patients at ease, said Sara Copeland, BSN, RN-BC, director of nursing for the College Station Region Clinics.

“She’s really good at connecting with people,” Copeland said. “She can be really funny, and that helps break the ice or make tense situations not so tense. She’s really good at lightening the mood by adding that funny comment to make it more lighthearted.”

Having good people skills is necessary in nursing because a lot of times people who need to see doctors or nurses are having a hard time, so it’s good to find out how to best help them, Litzen said.

“We all run into people that aren’t happy, but that goes back to really finding out what they’re here for, and why they’re angry because people don’t wake up to be angry,” Litzen said.

Now that she’s in more of a supervisor role, she has learned the value of being a good team player as well, she said.

“Right now, I can check a patient in at the front desk, get their vitals, or do whatever needs to be done,” she said. “You really need to be diverse and really learn everything that you can and help everybody on the team so that it makes the day better.”

Even though she has moved around a lot, she has been in the B-CS area for 10 years – the longest she’s lived anywhere as an adult. And although she doesn’t have any plans for a move any time soon, she’s not afraid of it.

“I will always be willing to accept new challenges, always willing to help,” she said. “That’s a big part of nursing, and I’m always willing to help.”