The long way 'home': ER nurse reflects on the curvy road to career success

Submitted to Branson Globe

Kristina Elrick’s career path may have twists and turns, but each detour helped shape her into the ER nurse her colleagues always knew she could be – even when she doubted herself.

ER nurse Kristina Elrick

Special to Branson Globe

The road to nursing wasn’t even on her GPS when she dropped out of high school after winding up half an English credit short.

“I was a student who followed the rules and never skipped class, but I just didn’t believe in myself,” she explains. “Sometimes I wouldn’t turn in completed homework because I didn’t want a bad grade. I know how contradictory that sounds.”

Instead of graduating in 1999 with her peers, Elrick went to work as a “school lunch lady” while also taking evening classes at OTC to prepare for her GED. She passed it on the first try.

That experience in food service made her a good fit when she heard about an opening in the cafeteria at Cox North.

“They took a chance on me,” she says with a smile. “I loved serving breakfast to the staff and helping patients and visitors as they took a break from sitting at the bedside.”

Although she enjoyed her work, there was a drive inside her to do even more to help others. That’s when she applied for a spot in Cox- Health’s CNA program through OTC. She was paid seven dollars an hour as she went through the classes.

“That was a pay raise from what I was making in the cafeteria so I was feeling good,” she remembers. “I was the first student in the program to be offered a position in the ER at Cox North. It was so exciting – and nerve racking – to work alongside the amazing caregivers that I had fed less than a year before.”

After ten years at Cox North and Cox South, Elrick made the move to Cox Branson.

“It was a year into the merger between Skaggs and CoxHealth,” she recalls. “It’s the hospital where I was born. The hospital I would point at every summer when I came to Branson to visit my family. It just felt right to be there.”

Elrick was content as a tech – one might even say “stubborn.” Her coworkers believed she could climb the career ladder even higher but she always pushed back. Two of her Springfield colleagues paid for her to take an aptitude test to see what other potential careers would suit her. The top three choices were sheet metal worker, teacher and nurse.

“Number one was a no-go,” she laughs. “I contacted the Springfield School District about the starting wage of a teacher, and it was about the same as I was making as an ER tech. All that was left on my list was a nurse. I just kept it on the back burner.”

Her colleagues in Branson kept pulling the idea off that back burner.

“The ER assistant nurse manager was Kim Unruh, and I was in awe of her fantastic bedside manner,” she says. “I kept thinking if I was half the nurse she was, I would be so great! It was seeing that work ethic, my friend Randi’s encouragement and nurse Traci Sheehan’s nonstop motivation that finally drove me to tackle nursing school.”

Elrick’s “forever role model” in life is her beloved Nana who never got to see her achieve that nursing dream.

“She was diagnosed with lung cancer the day I received my acceptance letter to Cox College and passed away the morning of my second semester final,” Elrick says. “On her death bed, she made me promise to never give up. I never broke a promise to her in my life, so I was full throttle to the very end when I graduated.”

Elrick credits a lot of her achievements to those around her – those who continued to hold her up over the years when she felt like falling, including Kim Unruh who is now her manager.

“I will always strive to be the caring, compassionate bedside nurse I witnessed in her eight years ago,” Elrick says with the biggest smile. “Now, as a fairly new charge nurse, I look to be like Jessi McCarty. She builds my confidence and reassures me weekly. Also on my role model list is Traci Sheehan who somehow always secretly gets me to do things I never knew I could. That’s a big deal.”

Elrick’s path to the ER frontline may have been bumpy at times but it’s brought her to a destination she adores.

“Helping others through their emergencies is my true calling,” she says. “Whether that is a sore throat, detoxing from an addiction, belly pain, or needing CPR, it is all important. My favorite patient is a mental health or substance abuse patient. I strive to give them nonjudgmental but real care.”

Those who’ve met Elrick know how much she values her hospital team – a team that became family.

“Our ER team rocks the house,” she grins. “I am currently blessed to represent our department in the Cox Branson’s House-wide Partnership Council. I love being so involved in helping the hospital as a whole. We are a giant team full of amazing people and it is the entire team that creates our great care throughout our walls.”

To get where she’s going, Elrick is grateful to where she’s been.

“Cox North ER gave me my firm foundation for the loving care I strive to give mental health patients. I will always give props to them. Cox Branson gives me the continued work family atmosphere of amazing coworkers and a community of support for our patients. I can never see myself leaving this place. All of those colleagues who helped me on this journey are stuck with me for good!”