Greenville LIFE in the EAST
SUMMER 2018
Nurses In the East
INSIDE:
Pet Therapy • Vidant Healing Garden • Hospice Care • Dr. Donna Lake • History of Nursing
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Note from the Editor Publisher John Cooke Editor Mackenzie Tewksbury Contributing writers Brian Wudkwych, Kim Grizzard, Michael Abramowitz Photographers Juliette Cooke and Molly Mathis Advertising managers Elizabeth Semple and John Powell Advertising representatives Kevin Gallagher, Tom Little, Christina Ruotolo, Alan Skirnick and Rubie Smith Creative Services Jasmine Blount, Brandi Callahan, Jessica Harris, Tim Mayberry, Dawn Newton, Victoria Privette Layout Lora Jernigan and Samuel Alvarado
Greenville: Life in the East is a publication of The Daily Reflector and Cooke Communications North Carolina. Contents may not be reproduced without the consent of the publisher.
I’ve always held a special place in my heart for medical professionals and the extreme talent, compassion and work that it takes to be successful. The long hours, the grueling work and the emotions that go into the job make it a profession that I truly look up to. To be honest, I haven’t had many expeMackenzie Tewksbury riences with nurses in my life that I can remember. I guess that makes me pretty lucky, as I have friends who’ve been in and out of hospitals and have seen nurse after nurse, doctor after doctor due to various health reasons. The nurses I do remember, however, are the ones that tended to both my grandfathers when they were sick. Even though I was very young, I can remember the tremendous care they provided and my family was very thankful for them. I think my lack of experience with nurses made this magazine that much sweeter. Getting to see the variety of nurses in this area and the impact that they make every single day has opened my eyes to some of the wonderful, talented and patient medical professionals here in the east. I hope you enjoy learning about the compassionate professionals as much as I did. Susan Willson Lally, a clincal professor at the college of nursing, treats patient’s mind, body and spirit through holistic nursing practices, such as bringing her adorable four-legged pals to brighten her patient’s moods. Cancer nurses at Vidant Medical Center are spending some time outdoors and in the sunshine with the addition of “healing gardens” at the new Vidant Cancer Center. Dr. Donna Lake has been making strides in healthcare for years, once in the military and now at ECU. Hillary Jarman, a hospice nurse at Aseracare Hospice in Winterville, keeps her spirits high while helping her hospice patients every single day. And take a look at the old, historic photos that have shaped the nursing community in Pitt County.
Thanks,
Mackenzie Tewksbury
medicine M a n’s best
Holistic practices aim to heal whole person By Brian Wudkwych | Photos by Molly Mathis
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tudents know Susan Willson Lally as a clinical instructor at the East Carolina University College of Nursing. Patients, however, often times know her simply as Murphy and Kaitlyn’s mom. This is because when the 37-year-old nurse is not busy teaching students the theory, methods and techniques behind holistic psychiatric nursing, she is usually practicing it, most often alongside her trusted, four-legged pals, who are licensed therapy dogs. Whether it is students readying for a final exam — Lally and Murphy can be seen roaming campus around this time helping students relax before a big test — or patients dealing with a chronic and mental illness, the benefits of animal therapy can crossover to many different scenarios. In fact, studies have shown that therapy animals can help decrease heart rate and blood pressure, all factors in a person’s anxiety level. Summer 2018
Susan Lally gives belly rubs to her therapy dog Kaitlyn
“
All animals have this complete ac c e p t a n c e a n d n o n - j u d g e m e n t . . .
“
I t’s u n condit ional love .
Murphy, a therapy dog, gets some love from nursing students at ECU during exam week
When patients see the dogs walk towards them, tails wagging, Lally has seen depressed people smile and non-emotional people cry. Most of all, though, she has seen joy and that has only fed her passion. “I remember a patient who really just did not want to get out of bed but I remember when we brought Murphy, it was the first time I had seen her smile,” Lally said. “Then she came every week that we were there and it was the highlight of her week. It’s immediate and easy to see.” That idea of holistic practice — the need to evoke certain emotions or sense — is what makes therapy dogs a natural fit into the regiment. But what also makes them so valuable is the non-human aspect of any type of therapy animal, really. When a patient has seen white coat after white coat, sometimes it takes something different.
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“All animals have this complete acceptance and non-judgement,” she said. “It’s conditional love. They don’t see the person’s illness. They don’t see that the person can’t walk or that they’re emotionally struggling. They are just there to offer love and that’s what is so beautiful about it.” The experience for the patient is one of the most impor tant aspects of being a holistic nurse, Lally said. Interconnectivity between emotional, mental and physical responses drives the modalities in the practices. There is more to treating an illness than just prescribing drugs, and at a time when opioid abuse is at an alltime high, finding individuality in treatment is important. To accomplish this, Lally and other holistic nurses aim to bring together significant aspects of a patient’s life. One such example is understanding a person’s religion and cultural norms and how that might affect reaction not just to the treatment but to the experience itself. It all, ultimately, is mind, body and spirit. “You can’t treat an illness unless you understand culturally does this person believe in mental illness,” she said. “If they don’t then you’re going to have treat that patient much differently to help them get healthy than if they did believe that they had a mental illness. I don’t think you can treat people unless you do it holistically.” Holistic practices really have no end point. Honing in on the senses is one of the most common goals of method, be it through meditation, heat, essential oils, massage therapy or even music. It is not uncommon for a patient to be skeptical about these
types of practices early on, Lally said, but once they have exhausted other options, the buy-in tends to be much easier. But while buzzwords in obscure treatments like emotional freed techniques involve phrases like aco-points, energy meridians, tapping and more can understandably create a sense of doubt, there is just something about the dogs that gets an immediate positive reaction. And while patients may not even realize it, animals are just another form of treatment. “Humans have a hard time because you judge people, even if you try not to,” Lally said. “But dogs don’t. They don’t even have the capacity to. It helps them relax and forget about what they’re going through for a minute.” As for Murphy, his mom said retirement is on the horizon. At 13-years-old, Lally said he has put in his dues and now it will be up to Kaitlyn to carry the torch alone until another dog is trained and ready to step in. But still, Murphy’s age did not stop him from touring Brody School of Medicine’s campus in late April to cheer up some students as final exams descended upon them. It wa s, a s it a lways seems to be, a joy ful e x p e r ie n c e fo r e v e r yo n e involved. “It’s fun to be Mur phy’s mom,” Lally said with a laugh. “People used to know me as Susan or the nurse that brought students along. It’s really just a testament.” Cont a c t Br i a n Wud kwych at bwudkwych@reflector.com or 252-329-9567 and follow @brianwudkwych on Twitter.
They don’t see that the person can’t walk or that they’re emotionally struggling. They are just there to offer love and that’s what is so beautiful about it.
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HOLISIC NURSING TREATMENTS
MEDITATION AND RELAXATION:
have healing the whole person as the goal—treating the person first and pain second. Following are some evidence based holistic treatments outlined by the American Holistic Nurses Association.
ESSENTIAL OILS:
Lavender essential oils are best known for their relaxing aura, but can also have painreducing effects as well. The oils can be applied topically or applied to palms and cup them around face and breathe in to embrace the relaxing powers of the oil.
HEAT/COLD:
MUSIC:
Music stimulates many things in the mind, like relaxation, which can in turn reduce types of pain. It also plays a big role in distraction, which can also reduce pain in some ways. Music and music therapy, much like pet therapy, can alleviate stress.
NUTRITION:
Heat is a safe treatment for a variety of conditions and illnesses such as fibromyalgia, muscle soreness and overexertion of muscles, chronic pain, cramping and muscle spasms. Heat dilates the blood vessels which then brings more circulation. It can be applied through a heating pad and/or heat cream.
What goes into people’s bodies directly impacts physical and both mental health. It’s important to keep balanced diets, as well as keeping a steady intake of important vitamins!
DO NOT USE HEAT OR COLD:
LAUGHTER:
*As always, be cautious and aware when using heat/cold remedies.
Of course, laughter sometimes is really just the best medicine there is!
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Meditation is a process where an individual focuses their mind on a specific thought, object or activity in order to achieve a mentally clear state of mind. Often, when patients have experienced physical or mental trauma, meditation and relaxation is an effective treatment for healing the mind. Another form of relaxation is Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). The American Holistic Nurses Association defines this as “focusing awareness on the body and alternately tightening and relaxing the muslces groups without holding the breath.”
Greenville: Life In The East
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Summer 2018
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healing
A place for
By Michael Abramowitz Greenville: Life in the East Photos by Juliette Cooke
T
he massive new Vidant Cancer Center tower in Greenville opened in March
as a monument of sorts to the medical com mu n it y â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a l l- out com m it ment to conquer the dreaded killer that claims so much of this regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s human treasure. Inside, nurses and other medical staff fight a daily battle to meet the disease head on. Oncology is not the ideal career choice for every nurse, but those who choose it say the rewards far outweigh the
Vickie Downing enjoys the healing garden at Vidant Cancer Center
challenges. Vida nt administrators, community leaders, nurses and medical staff planned and designed the new center together, based on the special needs they knew cancer patients and their loved ones would have — and the special challenges that those who care for them would face every day. With that understanding, thoughtful planners designed three relaxing “healing gardens,” designed and strategically situated near specialized sections of the tower as a place of respite not far from the battle zone but far enough away in form and appearance to provide them with a
calming and supportive environment. One of the gardens was built specifically for the staff, but nurses often make their way to the main garden and share the space with their patients and families. Oncology nurses Victoria Slowinski, Leighann Henley and Vickie Downing, each with decades of experience in the specialized field, met in the garden with the Daily Reflector on a perfectly calm and sunny spring morning to talk about why they love oncology nursing and how the gardens help them love it even more. In their line of work, it seems little things can go a long way. Surrounding them were
flowering shrubbery, rock sculptures, sandstone brickwork, benches and picnic tables. “It’s nice to have a place other than our little break room to get away from the beeping monitors and find some peace and quiet and sunshine,” Slowinski said. “We’re thrilled with everything here at the cancer center,” Henley said. “The purpose of this cancer center is to take care of the people of eastern North Carolina. My purpose is to be a part of that. The fact that the hospital has done something to take care of me is pretty extraordinary. They certainly didn’t have to erect these
I’ve been at Vi d a n t 3 3 y e a r s and remember talking about having a building like this my entire c a r e e r. . . Vickie Downing
Leighann Henley talks with The Daily Reflector at Vidant Cancer Center
gardens for the employees. I think they recognize that this is a special patient population and the nurses are very dedicated to these patients.” Downing’s office is on the tower’s fourth floor, allowing her to look down into the garden even when she can’t sit in it. When she sees her teammates having lunch there, she knows it is serving its purpose. “Caring for these patients is a wonderful privilege to us. We see them in the best of times and the worst,” Downing said. “We’re all human beings and our patients leave a mark on our hearts no matter how Summer 2018
long we take care of them. We can come out here to regroup or to just get a breath of fresh air, then get back in there and do what we love so much.” Even on a cold or rainy day, Slowinski enjoys sitting at her computer and looking out into the garden. That view was planned for the satisfaction it brings her and her colleagues. In fact, a third garden was built just for viewing from inside. Patients who receive chemical infusions can sit in comfortable recliners situated just right for a view of the flowers, rock and water sculptures and earth-toned brickwork outside while receiving cancer-fightGreenville: Life In The East
ing treatment. “You’ve got a beautiful view from everywhere you are,” Slowinski said. “The little details that went into the whole building are amazing, including the beautiful artwork,” Downing said.”The day we moved the patients into their spacious new rooms, their whole affect changed. It’s just made everybody’s mood so much lighter.” The gardens and all the art and technology designed into the new cancer center are not the sole support and comfort that the nurses find at the cancer center, but rather complementary to what the
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Victoria Slowinski talks with The Daily Reflector at Vidant Cancer Center
nurses give to each other, Slowinski said. They are used less for their solitude and more as a conducive environment for coming together and supporting each other, she said. “The nurses on our unit derive a great deal of strength from each other and we rely on each other a lot,” Slowinski said. “We laugh together, we do things together and we jump in to help if one of us is overwhelmed. This will be a great place to gather together and meet.” Nurses become very invested in their
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patients, sometimes from time of diagnosis until they pass away, Henley said. “I’m very thankful for that privilege of being there for them and getting to know their families,” she said. “Nurses that work here have that in common. The garden promotes our ability to gather together, socialize and speak openly; even to have staff meetings out here. I participated in some of the planning discussions for the cancer center, and we discussed these very ideas; that’s how we came to have three different gardens.” Greenville: Life In The East
The entire cancer center represents hope and healing, whether in the eyes of patients or staff members, Downing said. “I’ve been at Vidant 33 years and remember talking about having a building like this my entire career,” she said. “It seems surreal to me that we’re actually here now and get to take care of our patients here. Whether I look into the gardens from my window or sit in them, I know the benefit it’s bringing to our patients and staff.”
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Planting Seeds Hospice nurse keeps spirits high By Mackenzie Tewksbury Greenville: Life in The East Photos by Juliette Cooke
Hillary Jarman picks out flowers at Plant And See Nursery in Winterville
H
illary Jarman is no stranger to nurturing planted seeds, whether she’s in her backyard gardening or helping families find peace in what her hospice patients leave behind. “Rather than focusing on that the person is gone, I focus on the life they lived and the people they’ve touched and the seeds they’ve planted. That’s what’s really important,” she said.
Jarman is a R.N. Case Manager at Aseracare Hospice in Winterville. Hospice, or “comfort care” as Jarman explained it, is the care patients receive when curative treatments are no longer effective or the patient no longer wishes to receive curative treatments. The 25-year-old spends her day tending to 10, 12 or even 15 patients, working with doctors, social workers, nursing homes, families, etc, in an attempt to keep her patients —who are often suffering from terminally ill diseases — in the know, while also keeping their spirits high. And whether that’s attending weddings, t a l k i n g a nd l a u g h i n g, amending crisis’ or providing medical procedures, Jarman has learned to stay on her toes — prioritizing patients’ needs and truly expecting the unexpected. “My day can change in the blink of an eye,” Jarman
said. “And when they need you, they need you.” Jarman has no “cookie cutter” patient, as each of her relationships with her patients is extremely different. But, they do have one thing in common — she remembers they are really just like her. “ You m a ke s u r e t o r e me m b e r t hey a r e a person. They are not just some disease and symptom. Everybody has their own story,” Jarman said. A nd wh i le hospice sometimes ca r r ies a ne g a t i ve c o n no t a t io n , Jarman said it’s really just finding ways to comfort the patient using a holistic approach. If a patient has heart failure and fluid built up in their body, instead of trying to cure it, she’ll focus on helping with fluid—trying to make the patient as comfortable as possible.
...I focus on the life they lived and the people they’ve touched and the seeds they’ve pl anted.
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“Everyone always just jumps to the conclusion that the person is giving up — they just lay there and die. That’s not the case. A lot of the time, we just change the focus of treatment. We can’t cure the patient, so we focus on symptom management,” Jarman said. Jarman studied nursing and is a 2015 graduate from Lenoir Community college in Kinston. She decided to try hospice care, but for her, it wasn’t so much as a natural fit as it was stepping out on a limb. She said she had good experiences with hospice care with her family members, and she didn’t really know exactly what she wanted to do after graduation, she thought she’d give it a shot. And three years later, Jarman has treated more patients than she can count, going in and out of homes, hospitals, nursing homes and talking to patients about her life. She said hospice has taught her more about herself than she thought was possible, and forced her out of her comSummer 2018
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fort zone, making her a more talkative, outgoing person. “I used to be very shy about meeting new people,” Jarman said. “I was quiet, timid and not very outgoing. Just on my own. It was putting me out of my comfort zone.” Jarman, as a people pleaser, said it was hard at first to be able to have the really honest, difficult conversations required to do her job, but it came with ease over time. Jarman said some patients are strictly business — they want to know what’s going on and that’s it — while others want to sit and talk with her about her husband, her friends and her life for hours. She said her biggest goal is just finding out what the patient wants and tending to their needs as much as possible, even if it means ordering a movie off Amazon and watching it with them.
“I like to talk to them just like I would with every other person. Thats the biggest thing. Trying not to always treat them like they’re dying,” Jarman said. “They don’t need to be reminded of that.” Even though Jarman is often caring for patients at the end of their lives, she said there is still some beauty and peace in the day to day hospice care, calling it a “celebration of life” instead of grief.
And although there are times where Jarman can grieve with her patients, she tries to always keep a positive outlook, finding her own peace by planting seeds in her relationships and in her backyard. “I want the whole world to just be plants,” Jarman said with a laugh.
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On the Front Lines of Health Care By Kim Grizzard Greenville: Life in the East
Dr. Donna Lake
F
or a high-ranking former military officer, Donna Lake has an office that is rather low-profile. Small and nondescript, it is tucked away on the third floor of ECU’s health sciences building, so easy to miss that Lake sometimes greets visitors in the lobby and brings them up the elevator with her. She does not mind the accommodations. The environment is far superior to many of her previous work spaces, which have included Haitian refugee camps and war-torn regions of Kosovo. Inside this room, there is little to suggest that this wife and mother of two is a retired Air Force colonel and the recipient of two Department of Defense Bronze Star Medals. Among the few clues are pictures dotting the bookcase — photos with presidents Carter and Clinton and with
former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. After a 25 years and 46 countries, Lake has put her military career on the shelf. But at East Carolina University’s College of Nursing, she is still on the front lines of health care. In the military, working in the forefront of nursing sometimes required her to wear a flak jacket and a weapon, in case her Humvee was attacked. In academia, it means being part of the fight to change the way health care providers are trained so that they work as a team. “I learned that through aviation and I learned that through the Air Force,” said Lake, a clinical associate professor in the ECU College of Nursing and Brody School of Medicine. “Being in the back of an airplane taking care of critical-care patients,
it’s not just the nurse. It’s the medical technician. It’s the physician. It’s the pilot. It’s everybody. It’s a team. “I’m convinced we have to teach our students and our faculty how to do that,” she said. “You need to know how to lead teams whether it’s in war, peace or health care.” Growing up in New York as the oldest of four siblings, Lake did not necessarily consider herself to be a leader. While she “came from tough stock” (her father served as supervisor to 1,000 men during the initial construction of the World Trade Center), Lake imagined that after high school she might become a secretary. Though she had worked as a candy striper at 14 and taken a paid position as a nurse’s aid at 16, nursing school would require college, and no one in her family
Donna Lake,Clinical Associate Professor at ECU, holds a photo of her shaking President Bill Clinton’s hand. (Molly Mathis/Greenville Magazine)
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“
Being in the b a c k o f a n a i r p l a n e tak in g care of crit ica l- ca re p a t ien t s , it’s n ot ju st t h e n u rs e.
t h e m e d i c a l t e c h n i cian. th e p h y s i c i a n . the pilot. e v e r y b o d y.
“
I t ’s I t’s I t ’s I t ’s
It’s a team.
Donna Lake, third from left worked to facilitate aeromedical casualties in Kuwait. “I was forever putting U.S. servicemen in a coffin, moving them on an airplane back home,” she said. “I can remember standing on the tarmac and saying i’m a mother and somebody’s son is coming home.”
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had ever been to college. Lake became the first, receiving a nursing diploma from Long Island College Hospital and later her degree in nursing from Stony Brook University. No one in the family had served in the military either, but that didn’t stop Lake from enlisting in the Air Force at age 25. “My father didn’t want me to go,” she recalled. “My mother was in shock, and my father said, ‘Why would you do this?’ He said, ‘Only go in if you’re going to be a captain.’” She had already obtained a bachelor’s degree but wanted money to pursue a master’s, and she wanted to travel. Lake was so intrigued by other cultures and curious about global affairs that, while working as a nurse in Manhattan, she sometimes spent her days off at the United Nations headquarters, sitting in the visitors’ gallery listening to meetings about UNICEF. Although she longed to see the world, her first assignment in the Air Force was stateside. For a native New Yorker, the move to Mississippi provided its own form of culture shock. “They didn’t trust this damn Yankee and they reminded me,” she said, laughing. “But I loved Mississippi.” Lake had planned to spend only three years in the Air Force, but after two years, she met her husband at a leadership school in Alabama. Lake’s next military move would test those new skills. In her late 20s, she began the evolution from critical-care nurse to policy maker, becoming assistant director of the Air Force Health Promotion Program. Working with the Air Force surgeon general in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lake was responsible for dozens of medical hospitals and clinics. “This was during the days we were telling people to stop smoking and to exercise. We were telling them about prevention,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘How did I get here?’” By the early 1990s, Lake had welcomed her second child and her first assignment
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Donna Lake, who spent 25 years as an Air Force nurse, is now a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. Lake became a registered nurse at age 19. “I worked as a nurse’s aide at 16,” she said. “I’ve never had any other kind of job.”
Donna Lake was part of a humanitarian mission that provided primary care to 19,000 people in half a dozen African villages over 10 days, included 11, 874 meningococcal vaccines.
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Greenville: Life In The East
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abroad in Cuba. She was still breastfeeding her 6-week-old son when she was sent to care for Cuban and Haitian refugees at Guantanamo Naval Base. Escorted by Marines, Lake remembers being spit at and cursed at as she made her way through refugee camps, where tuberculosis was rampant and mothers were giving birth in filthy conditions. “I was trying to establish a policy and a process that we would take these refugees legally back to the United States. They needed health care,” she said. “The Haitians, 99 percent of them were HIV positive, and they were very sick. “I can remember bringing Haitians back to Andrews Air Force base and they had never seen a toilet,” Lake said. “They didn’t know how to use a toilet. We had to show them.” What she learned in her first refugee assignment helped prepare Lake for the crisis in Kosovo, where war had displaced some 30,000 refugees. It was this mission that earned Lake her first Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in a combat zone. “There were launch missiles on shoulders of farmers in the fields,” she said. “When you’re flying in a helicopter, you’re only off the ground 500 feet. So you could see the people that were trying to kill you … We were flying over houses that were being lit on fire by the Serbs.” Lake recalls going to a hospital where she and an Army doctor confronted a physician, an Albanian, who was refusing Serbian patients who needed access to a respirator. “The Serbs had killed his family,” she said. “That was the first time I witnessed hate among humans. I had never really seen it face to face, and I saw real hate there.” She witnessed it again on Sept. 11, 2001. Lake was working at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. Lake’s husband, who had left the
Summer 2018
Air Force and was working for the Federal Aviation Administration, called to warn his wife of the danger. “(He) said, ‘We’ve lost an airplane. … There’s been a crash into the World Trade Center. It looks like one’s coming your way. Get out of your building!” Lake said. “All of a sudden, we felt a shake and we looked out our window, black smoke and the plane had crashed into the Pentagon and we all ran out of the building,” she said. “Then we started to hear fighter jets. ... We really thought we were being attacked like Pearl Harbor.” Security forces, in full gear, surrounded the facility. Members of Congress were brought to the base for safety. A three-star general seated next to Lake said, “Donna, our world is never going to be the same after today.” From her assignment at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base, Lake was part of an effort to rapidly deploy more than 500 Air Force forces to Iraq in the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The war took its toll in more ways than one. There were 20 deaths due to suicide at the base where she worked. In 2004, she became medical group commander at Goldsboro’s Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, where she worked on a mental health suicide high risk screening collaborative. In 2006, she was sent to Kuwait to serve as a medical commander and director of aeromedical evacuation. It would be her last assignment. “I did not believe in the war. I could not be a cheerleader anymore. I was tired,” Lake said. “I had had enough. I had seen too much death, too many young people hurt. I took care of a lot of critical casualties, kids dying. I saw the poverty. I saw the politics and I said, ‘That’s it; I’m done.’” She retired five days after she came home to Goldsboro. While Lake was done with military service, retired Lt. Col. Philip Julian, a former assistant professor in ECU’s School of Nursing, saw no need for
Greenville: Life In The East
her to stop serving as a nurse. He invited her to ECU to make a presentation on global health and then talked with her afterward about a possible second career in academia. “We’re talking about somebody here who has Pentagon-level experience,” said Julian, former director of the leadership program for the master’s of science in nursing. “She’s been deployed all over the world. She had testified before Congress. That’s the caliber person we’re talking about. “I don’t think civilians and academics ever fully appreciate what the military instills in people,” he said. “We are by and large very mission-oriented and very focused on teamwork.” Though she had obtained her master’s degree in education years earlier, Lake felt unprepared for the academic culture. Even during her deployment, she had continued to work toward her Ph.D., though traveling meant coursework had to be completed online. “I did not have the same degree path that everybody else does,” Lake said. “I wasn’t embraced initially.” During her first few years at ECU, she seldom spoke of her military service. The memories were too fresh, and there was disagreement across the country on whether or not this was a war Americans should be fighting. Lake decided most people would simply rather not hear about it. “I don’t think even a lot of the people who worked with her knew how much she had really done and how much of a leader she had been in her career in the military,” said professor emeritus Marti Engelke, former associate dean for research in the College of Nursing. “I don’t think people really understood that. “She’s very modest,” Engelke said. “She doesn’t go around telling people all the things that she’s done.” Instead, Lake focused on her new mission at ECU. She took part in a Robert Wood Johnson Grant that studied the
33
nursing workforce and health care needs of eastern N.C. She also was awarded a grant to study the resiliency of children of military parents who were deployed. She helped to establish global partnerships with the medical school and nursing teams in Nicaragua. “I think what she’s really done since she’s been at ECU is she’s worked across disciplines,” Engelke said. “I think that she will help educate nurse leaders who can function in a more interdisciplinary environment, which is where health care is going.
34
“She takes a lot of leadership positions, but she’s not in it for the glory. She’s in it because it’s something she believes in. She knows all kinds of jobs have to get done in order to be successful at something,” Engelke said. “Just to use a metaphor from the military, she’s the boots on the ground.” For three years, Lake was the only nurse working on the American Medical Association’s Redesigning Education to Accelerate Change in Healthcare grant. With that mission accomplished, she is working on ways to help military nurs-
Greenville: Life In The East
es transition to academic faculty positions and to prepare nurses for hospital leadership. “I still see myself not finished,” Lake said. “I’m thinking what else can I do to make a difference?”
Summer 2018
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2105 EATON CT. 3BR/2BA Living room w/fp and dining combo. Home warranty by seller. Dir: Greenville Blvd. to Memorial Dr. Rt on Thomas Langston Rd., Lf on Shallow, Rt on Eaton. Hostess: Falene 258-0788. MLS# 77766
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4BR/2.5BA Approx. .54 acre lot. Features hardwood floors, gas logs, granite countertops, laundry room and walk-in attic. Screened back porch and double attached garage. Call Kunny 531-1872. MLS#74154
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A l ook at
Vidant
Health
V
idant Medical Center acts as a primary teaching hospital for East Carolina Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Brody School of Medicine. It is one of six level 1 trauma centers in North Carolina, but the only one of east of Raleigh, making the center a medical hub for eastern North Carolina. It is formerly known as the Pitt Community Hospital, a vision of Greenville physician Dr. Charles Laughinghouse. In 2012, the era of Vidant Health began as it became Vidant Health Center.
40
1923 Pitt Community Hospital, the first ever hospital in Pitt County, opens in downtown Greenville.
1934 Hospital was renamed Pitt General Hospital.
Greenville: Life In The East
Summer 2018
1949
2012
Renamed toPitt County Memorial Hospital
Hospital renamed to Vidant Health Center.
1998 Became University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina - Pitt County Memorial Hospital
Summer 2018
Greenville: Life In The East
41
A l ook at t he
College of Nursing
From humble beginnings to medical leaders
T
he East Carolina University College of Nursing opened itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doors with modest origins in 1960 -- it had only five instructors, a few students and one small office in the Rawl Building on campus. It is one of ECUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oldest professionals schools, once catering to mostly rural nurses, graduating only 17 students in the first graduating class. But today, after nearly 60 years, it is one of the top producers of new nurses among North Carolina universities and enrolls about 1,200 students across all programs.
1957-1959 North Carolina Rep. Walter B. Jones introduces the idea of a nursing school at East Carolina College to the General Assembly. In 1959, the four-year program nursing program was approved.
1960
1964
First students are admitted into the program.
First graduating class of 17 students
Eva W. Warren is named first dean.
1969
1987
Dean Warren retires. Evelyn Perry becomes dean.
The school of nursing becomes a part of the Division of Health Sciences, joining the school of medicine and the school of allied health sciences.
1982 Emilie Henning becomes dean.
1990
2010
Phyllis N. Horns becomes dean.
ECU College of Nursing celebrates 50 years.
2007 Enrollment reaches 1,000 students.
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