Luke Wigley

from 2022 Nurses the heart of health care

by The Eagle Advertising Department

Nancy Fahrenwald

Luke Wigley, BSN, RN,CEN

at Baylor Scott & White Health

JENNY TWITCHELL Special to The Eagle

Originally planning on getting his bachelor’s degree in health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University, Luke Kennon Wigley changed his mind after completing an internship at a hospital.

“I fell in love with nursing,” he said.

The ability to have a big impact on people’s lives every day led him to switch to nursing school at Blinn College.

“It seems like everything we do, every day, we are able to make big changes for someone - whether it’s getting someone off the ventilator or administering vasopressors; everything we do is potentially lifesaving,” he said.

After graduation, Wigley, BSN, RN,CEN, worked in the emergency room at CHI St. Joseph Health Regional Hospital in Bryan for fi ve years. Six months ago, he made the move to Baylor Scott & White Health where he works in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Although he appreciated everything he learned while working in the emergency room, he was ready to learn new things and switch focus, he said.

“I love my job,” he said. “I learn new things every day. It’s a little more structured. Now we get reports on patients, we don’t just say hi and then do a quick assessment, but we get to review a lot of data, lots and lots of data, labs, physician notes, plan of care, and then we start our routine while assessing patients the whole time, turning patients throughout the day, dealing with family, keeping people involved in care, so it’s a lot more structured and there’s a rhythm you get into that is not in the ER. I’m really thankful for the rhythm you get into. You get effi cient and get good at taking care of people.”

Wigley has also become more skilled at understanding the critical data for each patient. Every patient in the ICU gets multiple blood tests a day showing several values per test that indicate ever changing vital signs – including things like how much urine a patient makes in an hour. Those vital signs trends are critical to assessing the status of patients, Wigley said.

“I think you need critical thinking skills, you deal with a lot of really important scenarios, and you need to be able to make a good decision quickly,” he said.

That’s something that is true for both the ER and the ICU where people are facing drastic life-threatening problems, he said.

“The thing I love is using these big drastic interventions to try and reverse and fi x problems,” he said. “We are not trying to necessarily get back to baseline, but we are saving lives. It’s super gratifying to see those changes that save a life.”

Thankfully with COVID numbers down, Wigley said he is not needing to use drastic interventions as often for that, though it’s ever present now.

“We still do see COVID patients, it still does aff ect our daily lives,” he said. It’s something we will live with forever, something that will never go away, but I’m thankful for a little respite, a little relief.”

Through the years as he’s worked through the COVID surges and now working in the ICU, it has become more apparent to Wigley how vital teamwork with fellow healthcare workers is in nursing.

“We grow close; it’s a really tough job, and it’s great to be able to help your friends while helping other people,” he said. “At times, this job is way too much for one person. It frequently becomes a team eff ort. I like to think of it as running to a battle. The whole team rallies around the problem and we all take a task that we all know needs to get done.”

Working well with others during stressful times is what others notice most about him as well.

“The main thing that sticks out in my mind about Luke is that he is a team player,” said Brett Fladager, BSN, RN, ICU manager at Baylor Scott & White Health. “He came from the ER department to the ICU during the peak of our COVID surge, and he had to learn fast, and not only did he learn fast, but he just has this positive attitude, even when things were really busy on the unit.”