Honoring 11 Local Heroes
Mid-Valley
Presented by:
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hey care for us through many phases of our lives. They work in many aspects of nursing, from teaching to the intensive care unit, TRACE to Labor and Delivery, critical care to hospice. These amazing people work with families at the happiest moments and the scariest moments, and everything in between. They advise families during confusing times, they comfort people who are afraid, and they care for us as we age. The inaugural class of MidValley’s Nurses are 11 men and women from throughout the Mid-Willamette Valley who are being recognized for their tireless dedication, kindness, compassion and commitment to excellence in the field of nursing. Nominated by their patients, co-workers and peers for their outstanding work, these nurses were selected from dozens of nominees. A panel of seven had the honor of reviewing every submission and choosing 10 to honor. We asked you, the community, to make your selection from among the dozens submitted, and you chose our final honoree. This section will introduce you to these amazing nurses. While they work for different organizations and in different capacities, each one of our honorees shares some similar qualities: They care about their patients, their clients, their co-workers. They inspire others with their compassion, their can-do attitudes and dedication, and they make the often intimidating world of health care a bit less scary. Along with Samaritan Health Services, we present their stories here as we honor the 2021 Class of MidValley Media Group’s Nurses of Honor. Be sure to visit democratherald.com or gazettetimes.com to see a video of each of the nurses.
Shanna Cannon Regional Publisher Mid-Valley Media Group
Health Care Heroes 2021 Judges Panel
SHANNA CANNON
STACY COLE, BSN, RN
BENNETT HALL
NICK HURLEY
Regional Publisher Mid-Valley Media
CHPN-Clinical Manager Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care
Editor Mid-Valley Media
Chief Corvallis Police Department
ALEX JOHNSON II
CHRIS REESE
Mayor, Albany
Director Mid-Valley Family YMCA
ROXANNE SHAW, MSN, RN Director of Professional Development Samaritan Health Services
Index of Honorees
Jamie Bryant .......................................................................... 6
Aslan Noakes ........................................................................ 11
Amy Dale ............................................................................... 3
Reenie Schwallie .................................................................. 13
Casady Froman ..................................................................... 5
Cindy VanMeter .................................................................... 10
Jessie Galusha ....................................................................... 4
Amber Vogler ........................................................................ 14
Tammy Huett ......................................................................... 7
Mo Weinman ........................................................................ 15
Ashley Morelli....................................................................... 12
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DALE LOVES
INTENSITY OF ICU CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
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ot all nurses graduate from high school knowing they will go into the profession. Amy Dale took the long way to get there and tried a few careers in between, but now she is one of the longestlasting nurses in the intensive care unit at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis. Dale has been a nurse since 1993 and worked in Samarian’s ICU since 1996. “I’m probably one of the longest hired in ICU (besides) maybe one or two other nurses,” she said. “I always liked working with people,” she said. “I had an experience where the nurse was really important to me and I was really scared. She was with me and helped me through a procedure. That sparked my interest to be a nurse: that I could help people in moments where they are scared and I could be there for them. That’s what drew me.” Dale was 21 years old and had just graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a degree in psychology when she had that experience. She briefly went back to school, trying to find her way, and thought about becoming a teacher. She took courses at Oregon State University for teaching and decided maybe that really wasn’t for her. Then she went to nursing school for a couple terms and decided she just wasn’t at
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
in the moment they need someone, she said supportive of each other and encouraging to it can get overwhelming. those new in the field. Dale is able to remain composed and calm “Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath,” she said. “It can be overwhelming and on the job, and decompresses at home, in that point in her life. you get compassion fatigue. You have to be able her garden or cooking. Her husband is a “In your young 20s, you really don’t know to turn it off and you have to care for yourself.” physician, and they are able to rely on one what you want to do in life,” she said. ICU nurses can easily burn out. Dale has another and talk out their day. She has two She moved to Wyoming for a few years and been a mentor, and encourages those who nearly adult children who are great people waitressed, which she really enjoyed. have an interest to pursue the career if it is to spend time with, she said, and she loves In her 30s, she returned to Corvallis, their passion. She said nurses today are very to spend time outdoors. her hometown, and went to Linn-Benton Community College to become a registered nurse. Her first job required her to relocate to Las Vegas but she eventually returned to Oregon. By then, she was 38 and had a 1-year-old child. She decided it was time to settle down and to obtain her bachelor’s degree of science in nursing, a four-year We are especially proud of our program for students who nursing alumni. seek to become a registered You can follow in their nurse. She enrolled at footsteps. Oregon Health & Science For more information, visit: University. go.chemeketa.edu/nursing It was a great decision and she is very flattered to be recognized with this award for simply doing what she loves. In critical care, Dale gets “dialed in” to her job. She has close relationships with physicians and really gets to immerse herself in the illnesses patients have. “(ICU) is a much more detailed look at what’s going on with the patient than when you have more patients who aren’t quite as sick,” she said. “These are usually the sickest patients and it’s a crisis moment for the patients and the family. I try to be there with the patient and for the family and connect.” While she likes the intensity of her job and loves working with people, and being there
“Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath.”
Chemeketa Salutes Nurses: The Heart of Health Care
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Acts of service love language for Galusha
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
Jessie Galusha is all heart. “Jessie possesses the gift of presence and is an active listener,” wrote Stacy Cole, clinical manager at Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care in her nomination of Galusha. “She is a passionate advocate helping patients and families obtain appropriate and necessary help during a difficult time of their lives.” Galusha has been with Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care for almost two years as registered nurse case manager. Prior to that, she spent five years as a hospital nurse in the Progressive Care Unit at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis. That’s where patients receive full-treatment care unless there is a sudden change in their health. Then, nurses transition to comfortcare mode. If a patient rapidly declines, nurses call family members, and change the room to provide comfort and make the situation more homelike.
“I felt myself drawn to those situations,” Galusha said. “I felt honored to be a part of it.” After five years, Galusha needed a change. “For my family,” she said. “As a mother of two, working 12-hour shifts and inconsistent days made parenting difficult.” So, Galusha began looking for something where she could better use her skills. Although she looked at a variety of opportunities, she always wanted to be a hospice nurse. When the opportunity knocked, she answered. “I’ve always enjoyed taking care of people,” she said. “Acts of service is my love language. Like, I want to show you how I can help you.” Hospice is a better fit, although it was a hard transition in the beginning, Galusha said. This last year, she hit her stride. “It has been the year of most improvement,” Galusha said.
She likes to help patients solve problems and overcome challenges, and credits the Lumina team with assisting her through the tough times. She finds mental health to be the biggest challenge in providing care. “I can deal with symptom management, that’s what we do,” Galusha said. “I can see why and help. I love providing emotional support. But sometimes patients suffer from a lot of mental health issues. I have a social worker, a chaplain, hospice aid, sometimes a physical therapist. That is so helpful.” In these cases, she relies heavily on the social worker. The good times shine. When she has a patient who comes in with challenges, be it paperwork, online registration for health care or calendar management, and they get everything in place, she feels satisfaction. As things progress and the patient has a peaceful passing, she feels that is so rewarding. “The family knows what to expect and we all work together through it,” she said. Galusha lives in Lebanon and gets assigned cases mostly in her area. However, she does travel to see patients throughout the valley. She is a private person but has no shame admitting that she doesn’t have a crafty bone in her body. “I love going to craft fairs and buying things other women h a ve made
beautiful and put hours of time into. I don’t have the time or the patience to do it.” Her sense of humor gets her through a lot, and she laughingly admits to collecting Pyrex bowls. “Everybody thinks it’s so funny,” she said. “I purposely go to thrift stores and look for Pyrex.” Galusha is raising a daughter and son, and credits her ex-in-laws, Vern and Stacy Gerig, with being supportive and helping her through school.
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Winner Community
Casady Froman
CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
Coordination is a big part of the job for Casady Froman. Froman is the nurse care manager at Regency Albany, a skilled nursing facility. She sees to the needs of the 40 patients in the building. Residents are there for therapy, long-term care, psychiatry care or rehabilitation. Not only does Froman coordinate all of the care, she schedules appointments with a doctor’s office, specialist or house physician or outside provider of any kind. She coordinates with patients’ families as well as providing wound care, medications, holding patients’ and families’ hands, and having tough conversations with family members. There is in place a nurse management team, so Froman does have some help, but communication and care coordination mostly is her responsibility. Froman has been a nurse for five years and has worked for Regency for four years. She started in the field as a certified nursing assistant 13 years ago at age 18. “Always in the back of my mind, I wanted to be a nurse,” she said. Life hasn’t been easy. Froman got married and
went into phlebotomy, the drawing of blood. She had children and was struggling in a bad marriage but managed to go to nursing school. Today, she is divorced, engaged to a wonderful man, she said, and back in school full time, studying to be a licensed practical nurse. “I kind of always knew I would go into this field,” she said. “I’ve always been a caring person and liked caring for people.” Froman works 40 hours a week and is oncall at least one weekend a month. She has four children, ages 12, 10, 6 and 1, to care for at home. She said it all is possible because she has a village behind her. Her parents live next door to her and she can count on them to help with her children, especially since the pandemic and school closures. Her grandmother likes to watch the youngest child. Balancing work and life is a big challenge for Froman. “Because I put so much heart into my job, it’s hard to hang up on the weekend,” she said. “If it’s not my on-call weekend, it’s really hard for me to just un-click. Especially if I had so send somebody to the hospital on a Friday night; it’s really hard for me to not call the building to check what’s going on.” Froman especially wanted to be there for patients during COVID as their families were not allowed in to visit or to come hold their hand through the hard times. “It’s been really difficult for me to sit on the inside of a window with my resident as their family is on the other side of the window and they are talking through a cell phone,” she said. “Or to tell the family they can come in right now, only because your family member is dying. “I love helping people who come in who have had something tragic happen, and watch them walk out. Knowing that I was a part of that; to change their life for the better is the best feeling.” She has cared for patients who have resided at the Regency for years, and said there is no feeling that can match watching them go from bedridden to walking with a walker and eventually seeing them walk out the front door, knowing she was their cheerleader the entire time and helped push them to do it. She will complete her education with a bachelor’s degree, and celebrate with her wedding.
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BRYANT CARING FOR MOTHERS
HE TENDED AT BIRTH Nurse Jamie Bryant has participated in thousands of baby deliveries at Samaritan Albany General Hospital.
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CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
ut that’s not necessarily what makes this nurse so special. Bryant happens to be the only male labor and delivery nurse within Samaritan’s system of five hospitals, and is said to be the most requested nurse in the department. He said the biggest hurdle in his career was getting a foot in the door of labor and delivery. “There were very few males working in the field 25 years ago,” he said. “Once I got my foot in the door, had someone to train me and proved myself, it took off from there. They say you have to pursue your passion, and I pursued my passion.” Bryant was hired as a medical surgical nurse in 1992. On April 1, 1997, he moved into labor and delivery. “I always wanted to work up here,” he said. “It took them awhile to get the gumption to train a male nurse up here. Nursing is a career where if you show skill and compassion and caring, they don’t care if you’re male or female, green, blue, white, whatever.” He loves what he does and enjoys the people he works with. His focus is on patient care. “My goal for you is to send you home with a happy, healthy baby,” he said. After high school, Bryant joined the military. After a few years, he realized the military wasn’t for him and decided he would rather go to nursing school. “I always have been comfortable around kids and taking care of kids,” he said. “When I got into nursing, I wanted to be a pediatric nurse, and then you realized you have to take care of sick children. I didn’t know if I could handle that emotionally. I always liked babies
and always wanted to deliver babies, so this was the normal progression for me from graduation to here. I eased into this slowly.” Bryant is from Klamath Falls. It was there he attended nursing school and met his future wife, Michel. She grew up in Lebanon and had a job waiting for her back home after graduation. Bryant applied for a position in Albany and was hired, so the couple moved back to Albany. His family is his greatest achievement. He has been married for 30 years and his three children are college graduates. He credits his wife with doing a superb job of raising their children and being very supportive of his career. “Being part of a family is my greatest accomplishment,” he said. “Nursing is what I do for a living, but my family is why I do it.” His wife credits him for “catching” all three of their newborns. She said he has a gift – a sort of “superpower” – for helping women find “the power and strength they didn’t know they had to get through childbirth.” It is no surprise to her that several patients nominated him for a nursing award. After 25 years in the department, he is helping deliver babies for the grownup babies he tended to years ago. It’s often that the couple goes out in public and runs into mothers and/or children Bryant has cared for in the delivery room. Bryant said he will continue to work for as long as people respond well to him. Michel is a nurse for Visiting Angels. On the side, Bryant and his wife run Bryant Family Farm, a 5-acre U-pick blueberry farm they purchased five years ago. It’s his hobby and gets him outside. “It’s fun,” he said. “I get to buy tractors and lawnmowers and trucks and things.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
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Grandmother’s hospice care made impact on Huett
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CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
ammy Huett realized about 20 years ago that she wanted to be a hospice nurse. Her first experience with hospice was when the doctors could no longer do anything more for her grandmother. “She just wanted to go home and to be able to die at home,” Huett said. “I was there when she was transported (home) and I was there when the local hospice came in and they made that happen. It really made an impression on me and I knew at that time I wanted to be a hospice nurse one day.” Huett said she is a later-in-life nurse. She raised her family before she started nursing school. “I finished the nursing program at LinnBenton Community College in 2017, and was hired with Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care the same month I graduated,” she said. Huett and her husband lived in Costa Rica for 10 years and raised their two boys there before moving to Oregon in 2012. At that time, Huett began volunteering at Lumina, then known as Benton Hospice Service. As a registered nurse, Huett works threequarter time as a weekend, on-call and afterhours nurse. “I’m part of a 24-hour team,” she said. “I respond to all patients and answer calls for hospice and palliative care needs at any time for any reason.” This schedule allows case managers to leave a visit list for weekend staff who also answer any calls that may come in. Huett’s nomination form said “She is a wonderful hospice nurse that truly cares for our patients’ needs. She has a comforting/ nurturing nature towards patients and coworkers, and is always to kind to everyone.” “Tammy has a sweet, gentle side but is also fierce when advocating f o r
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
patients and families,” said Stacy Cole, Lumina clinical manager. “She is full of compassion and dedication.” Huett also helps cover the clinical manager position when necessary. “The goal is to keep people as comfortable as they possibly can be at the end stages of their lives,” Huett said. “Sometimes you can try everything and it’s not always possible. That’s very difficult when someone is struggling. We can just try our best and do what we can, but if that’s not 100% effective as we hoped, we do what we can.” In this time of COVID-19, with all the masks and face shields and trying to be there and present with patients, it’s a challenge to make the same connections with patients, Huett said. “I feel like that’s a barrier,” she said. “Our patient population is older and hard of hearing. It’s difficult to connect …. not to be able to give family a hug; we just can’t do that anymore.” While Huett works at her dream job part time, she is available to work with her husband at their winery, Huett Cellars.
Be the nurse you want to be. As an independent, community-based nonprofit, we are able to go above and beyond to provide compassionate care to patients and families when they need it most. Lumina nurses play a critical role in leading this patient-centered care. Be part of our award-winning team. luminahospice.org/jobs
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Because of you we’re celebrating…
11 outstanding nurses in our community. We would like to thank our wonderful sponsors for supporting these front-line health care workers.
Alex Johnson Mayor of Albany
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RETURNING
THE GIFT OF LIFE 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. “I took the first available spot,” Griesmaier said. “I said, ‘I’ll go anywhere, at any time.’” As soon as administering the COVID-19 vaccine became an option, nurse Lizzy Murphy, education coordinator at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, jumped at the opportunity. “We’re just so excited to have a vaccine,” Murphy said. “I was like, ‘As many hands as they need. Let’s get this in people’s arms.’” Griesmaier signed up to receive her first dose of the vaccine at 9 a.m. on Dec. 18. Murphy signed up to work one of Northwestern’s vaccine tables all day on Dec. 18. Griesmaier is Murphy’s mom. The two have leaned on each other and drawn strength from each other and shared tears and the occasional lunch (when there’s time) and rides to work (masked, with the car windows down) as the novel coronavirus crashed through our lives, infecting more than 1 million Illinoisans. “At the beginning I was keeping a log, ‘How many patient exposures do you think you had today?’” Griesmaier said. “And then I was checking it against the statistics on TV. I mean, it was nuts. I was really so worried about how things were going for her.” Griesmaier was in awe, she said, of her daughter’s calm, and her lightning-fast mastery of COVID-19 protocols and personal protective equipment needs and severe respiratory illnesses. “I’ve been a nurse for a very long time,” Griesmaier said.
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.
‘I gave birth to her. And she’s going to keep me alive.’ (Forty years, to be exact.) “I just kept thinking, ‘How does she know all of this? How is she doing all of this?’” Working at the same hospital was a tremendous relief, Griesmaier said. “Not only because I had such confidence in her,” she said. “But because I still felt like I could make sure she’s OK.” Murphy was supposed to get married on May 30. She and her mom had been planning the big wedding for more than a year. “At the beginning it was like, ‘It’s going to be fine by May,’” Murphy said. “And then the realization of it all finally hit us. So that emotional side of canceling your wedding, my mom was there for all of it.” And then, as the year like no other drew to a close, a vaccine arrived. And Griesmaier was scheduled to receive it on the day her daughter was scheduled to administer it. “I knew my mom was coming that day, but there were 18 stations,” Murphy said. “The chances of all of it happening just right ...” Murphy had received her first dose Dec. 17, the day before her mom was scheduled to receive hers. Murphy knew the drill, and she also knew the emotions. Griesmaier felt them
all, the moment she walked into the hospital to receive her shot. “It felt so reverent,” Griesmaier said. “I’m just so grateful we’re getting to do this. I was in awe of the moment.” Then Murphy’s table had an opening. And it was Griesmaier’s turn. “I thought, ‘I gave birth to her. And she’s going to keep me alive,’” Griesmaier said. Murphy administered the shot, which Griesmaier says she barely felt. On Friday, three weeks after that first shot, Murphy administered her mom’s second dose. “It feels sort of full circle,” Murphy said. “I wouldn’t be a nurse without my mom. I owe my work ethic and everything and the opportunity to go to nursing school and have a great education to my parents. “I always feel like I can never repay her for everything she’s done for me,” Murphy continued. “This I feel like is the greatest gift I could give her.” “I’m just so proud of her,” Griesmaier said. “She’s done such beautiful work. Her heart is just — she’s a nurse, true and true. And it’s just amazing. Here’s your child. Here’s your daughter. How this all came together, it’s just amazing.” Griesmaier helps patients who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. She sees fear and hope every workday, preand midpandemic. “I’m just amazed at the resilience,” she said. “The strength and courage that my patients have and their families have, I’m always just amazed.” The arrival of this vaccine, she said, gives her hope for their futures, for their ability to ward off a dangerous virus while their immune systems are already severely taxed. “It’s a good powerful moment between us,” Murphy said. “And it’s also a sense of hope that we’re all moving in the right direction.”
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VanMeter Began Career IN THE NAVY
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CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
rom hanging onto a rope dangling from a helicopter to raising her daughter and making it through nursing school, Cindy VanMeter has led a busy life. VanMeter has been a nurse for seven years. Raised mostly in Albany, she always knew she would go into the medical field. After high school, VanMeter spent nine years in the US Navy, acting as a hospital corpsman with the Marines. When VanMeter was 5 years old, she began telling people she wanted to work in the medical field. “It’s always been my calling,” she said. “Ever since I was little, I just always liked to help people.” After getting out of the service, nursing was the most logical career choice so VanMeter could get back to doing what she loved to do so much in the military. Hospital corpsman is a craft of all trades. They do much of what nurses do in the civilian world, and more. These days she is studying 20 hours a week for her nurse practitioner’s license. She also works full-time as a nurse case manager at Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care. What makes it important to her, she said, is being able to see the change she makes in people’s lives. “Being able to help somebody and see that change physically that you are able to help them,” VanMeter said. “That’s not something easy to put into words.” When she left the Navy, she earned her certified nursing assistant license and worked her way through nursing school. She became a nurse case manager at New Horizons and then a floor care nurse at the Oregon Veterans’ Home in Lebanon. The last 18 months, VanMeter has been at Lumina,
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
providing palliative and hospice care to 12 to 14 patients. She is the go-between for doctor and patient, as well as between family and patient. “I help families through the hard time of losing their loved one, and am making people comfortable at the end of life,” she said. VanMeter said she is proud to be part of We Honor Veterans, a program focused on respectful inquiry, compassionate listening and grateful acknowledgment through which the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization collaborates with the Department of Veterans Affairs to recognize unique needs of American veterans. “Being able to thank those who went before me in the military and give them that special thanks that we do …,” she said. “It makes it warm and fuzzy.” Working full time, being a single mom, homeschooling with a 12-yearold, and doing her own studies is difficult. But she’s made it this far, and said she has a great daughter who is very helpful. She said she wouldn’t be where she is today without the support of her family. Her entire family lives within a 10-foot radius of each other and are there when needed. She said she also has found much support at Crowfoot Baptist Church in Lebanon. Through the church, she was able to go on a medical and missionary trip to the Philippines in 2019 to help people recovering from a tsunami. She worked with a team of five doctors and got to see how other countries’ medical teams care for patients. She helped with everything from appendicitis to working to teach sign language to a little girl who was deaf. “Watching her eyes light up when she got it was amazing,” VanMeter said. VanMeter was selected as the community choice honoree for Celebrate Nurses, the only nurse selected by popular vote.
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Noakes able to advocate for father’s care in
EMERGENCY CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
Aslan Noakes is honored to be a nurse. Her skills allowed her make sure her father got the best care when he needed it most. Her father is her No. 1 fan and a former patient, of sorts. In November, her father had a severe hemorrhagic stroke and was hospitalized in Portland. The timing was at the pandemic peak and only one person was allowed to be with a hospitalized patient every 24 hours. Noakes and her mother shared time caring for her father. As COVID-19 numbers continued to climb, only one person was allowed in with patients. Noakes and her mother agreed Noakes would stay and advocate for his care. It was hard to be the one for the family, as Noakes was separated for a time from her 8-year-old son and husband in Philomath. “When you’re the nurse for the family, you’re the nurse,” she said. “I’m thankful that my job was supportive and accommodating.” “Being a nurse is being an advocate,” Noakes said. “When you know the systems in place and what needs to be advocated for, and knowing that you have the power to advocate what’s best for your patient, I think that is my favorite thing about being a nurse.” Noakes has been a registered nurse for 11 years and worked at college health on campus at Oregon State University for 10 years. She did her undergraduate degree in nutrition and food management because she originally wanted to be a dietician. It was during labs in her senior year of study she decided she wanted to do more. While other students were feeling faint seeing their own blood, Noakes found it fascinating. Running tests that came from
machines plugged into patients was not as interesting as the process of putting tubes into a patient, and the reason why they needed tests. “I loved the science and the why behind things, and I wanted to be more hands-on,” she said. “And I love people. So nursing seemed like a good fit.” When COVID hit, Noakes was furloughed from campus health. She hadn’t been working full time, as she also is involved with the Empower Haiti Together program, which she started after traveling in 2010 to Haiti with a medical team. They were responding to the earthquake that hit the island. On her last day at student health, she interviewed and was hired for the position of operations manager at TRACE, a health program at OSU that gathers information about the coronavirus in area communities and on campus. TRACE conducts door-to-door COVID testing throughout the state. Noakes helped set up and design the flow to run COVID testing at four sites on campuses: two at OSU, one in Bend and the other in Newport. “I oversee all staff at all those sites,” she said. “I love people and I love working with college students, so it was really nice to somewhat stay in college health.” Very few people know Noakes lettered in football in high school. It was her favorite sport and she wanted to play; however, the private school she attended wouldn’t allow her to take the field. So she became the best team manager they ever had. “They surprised me during the last game and let me scrimmage. They gave me a letter on senior night,” she said. “I did ‘kid’ sports medicine for the team.”
“I loved the science and the why behind things, and I wanted to be more hands-on,” she said. “And I love people. So nursing seemed like a good fit.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
Looking back, she said taping, icing and wound care for football players might be one of the things that led her to nursing. It didn’t faze her when one player came off the field with a broken arm and the bone beginning to poke through the skin.
“The thing I love about nursing is that it is a trusted profession,” she said. “I feel people can be really vulnerable around you and share personal things, and I don’t take that lightly. I think it’s really an honor to be a nurse.”
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As a young child, Ashley Morelli thought being a doctor would be “cool.”
CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
“I’d always ask my doctors about what they were doing at my appointments,” Morelli said. “As I got older, I realized that nurses were the ones doing the work I would enjoy.” One-on-one time and connecting with patients are what she loves about her job. As an exam nurse at Willamette Valley Cancer Institute in Corvallis, she has a variety of duties. She performs phone triage, patients calling with symptoms or questions, and care coordination, people trying to get in to see their surgeons, get second opinions or see a specialist. Originally from the Portland area, Morelli completed nursing school on the coast in Newport. The job opening at the cancer institute was everything she was looking for. “I didn’t expect to find it right out of school,” she said. “I thought it would be something I would
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
have to wait for and work my way into. I snatched it up as soon as I saw it.” Morelli sought cancer care because of the environment.
Connecting with patients over several years is important to her. She said her passion and confidence in being able to have end-of-life planning
conversations is a fit for the position. “I knew that would serve me well in this area of work,” she said. “Just being able to have
those conversations and getting to do that with people I’ve gotten to know and know their families over years and become close with … it’s a very special service for me to help people through these challenging times.” The end-of-care conversations are difficult, but Morelli doesn’t mind. She said when the alternative is having a conversation in the emergency room or a strange environment, it is better to plan it out with someone they have gotten to know and trust. She has the strength and desire to be that person for patients. “It is hard,” she said. “On the flip side, I get to see my patients in these really challenging treatments and help them make it through. Others, I get to see once a year on (after care) because they are thriving and doing wonderfully. That’s the best feeling.” Time is her biggest challenge. She wishes she could have more time to spend with patients. Sometimes there is only enough time to focus on the issue at hand, and she would rather get to see the whole picture of what’s going on in their lives. “You know their family, their career, and you get to help cater their care to that,” she said. “I don’t always have that time to sit and talk to my patients for an hour. I wish I did.” Morelli is proud of where she is in life. She worked her way through school, and at 25 years of age has followed through on her goals. “I got into work that I’m passionate about and found a great town to live in,” said the Albany resident. “I’ve accomplished a lot and my career is a big deal to me.” At home, Morelli relaxes with her flock of chickens as she contemplates growing into nursing and becoming more involved in volunteer groups.
MAY 2021 | 13
CELEBRATE NURSES
Schwallie Answered Calling
LEFT HOSPITAL FOR HOSPICE CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
E
nd-of-life care is every bit as important as the beginning of life, and Reenie Schwallie wants to make sure her patients feel cared for and comfortable with the decisions they make. Schwallie is the admissions nurse at Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care in Corvallis, and has been taking care of others since 1978. A graduate of Loyola University in Chicago, Schwallie moved to Corvallis about 40 years ago when her husband took a job with Hewlett-Packard. The couple raised four children and have four grandchildren. “Nursing is a wonderful career,” she said. “I went into it because I liked science and helping people.” She has worked at Lumina Hospice, formerly named Benton Hospice Service, since 2003. The name was changed because it serves five different counties. “It was a long journey to get here,” Schwallie said. “I had worked in a hospital, but always wanted to work with patients and their families in a home setting. I help people deal with the end of life. Like birth, death is important to family life.” As a hospital nurse, she saw people die alone, without their pets, family and comfort of home. Hospice care, she said, was her calling. She began working in hospice part time while raising her children. Eventually, she became a case manager and then a manager. Now she is the admitting nurse and the first point of contact for patients.
“It’s a tough time,” she said of the stage in life when people make final plans. “It’s a crucial point in life. So many people are ready to embrace comfort care at home rather than pursue more aggressive treatment. By the time they get to me, they are so grateful to hear about the care hospice provides.” “People have so many ideas of what hospice is,” Schwallie said. “It truly is all about comfort care and all about the quality of life, not the quantity. We don’t make choices for (patients); we support and educate them to make choices for themselves.” The day-today diversity of the job is what Schwallie likes the most. She said everyone is different, and she gets to meet all sorts of people from all walks of life. “No day is like the other,” she said. The biggest challenge she has faced in the profession is happening now. In this time of COVID-19, Schwallie said it is very difficult to wear double masks and face shields and still connect with people. It’s been a huge challenge to communicate with all these barriers. Through it all, Schwallie said it is important to pay attention to self-care. She said she is lucky to have a wonderful team of coworkers who support each other through the tough cases and these frustrating times. Away from work, Schwallie is an outdoors person. She skis and climbs mountains as an outlet and to maintain balance in her life. “I feel very blessed to be a part of Lumina and make a positive difference in people’s lives,” she said. “The isolation people are suffering at this time is as awful as the pandemic.”
“Nursing is a wonderful career,” she said. “I went into it because I liked science and helping people.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
14 | MAY 2021 CELEBRATE NURSES
Cross-training made Vogler versatile CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
F
or nurse Amber Vogler, the emergency room is a second home. “It’s amazing,” Vogler said. “It’s busy, it’s fun, exciting, hard; a little bit of everything, it feels like sometimes.” She has been a nurse at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis for 18 years, with the last two years spent in the ER. There have been 16 years in the oncology department and some time spent in all other departments sprinkled in for good measure. Vogler said she has always “just known” she wanted to be a nurse. She went to nursing school right after graduating from Philomath High School. “It’s what I was meant to do,” Vogler said. “I’ve always been that person who wants to help people and change the world. I’ve always felt like there is a way I could make a difference on a smaller scale.” Her patience and bedside manner are often noted, and her compassion and caring much appreciated. The many thanks from her patients just reinforce that she is doing the right thing. “It has been fulfilling and satisfying,” she said. There is no such thing as a typical day in the ER. Vogler said it is unpredictable and nurses must remain flexible and ready to take on anything. “There is no set routine,” she said. “You never know what is going to come through the door.” Vogler is no routine nurse and she likes taking on something new. She challenged herself to cross-train in all the different departments of the hospital, and can be counted on step in to assist at any time. “All those jobs and departments are difficult,” she said. “But it’s just something I’ve taken on and pushed myself to do over the years.”
Patient care is Vogler’s favorite part of the job. “I like getting to know them and take care of them and help them at a time when they aren’t feeling good,” she said. “It’s something I’ve always had (within me). People like my grandmother and my mom and people in my life were that way with me. They probably instilled a lot of that in me.” While she finds nursing very rewarding, Vogler loves to get outdoors and explore. She spends her free time camping, backpacking, hiking, paddleboarding and fishing. “I like adventure,” she said. She plans to sell her house and belongings next year and take a year to travel the country in a trailer with her three terriers. While she works as a travel nurse temporarily filling hospital needs on contract, she hopes to see a baseball game at as many Major League Baseball parks as she can. Hopefully, that will satisfy her wanderlust for a bit. She plans to then return home and resume work at the hospital. “I can’t think of anything else I want to do,” she said. Her children and nursing at the two best things in Vogler’s life. She has a son and daughter and is extremely proud of both. Her daughter, a junior at Philomath High, wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps, and already has started taking college nursing courses.
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
MAY 2021 | 15
CELEBRATE NURSES
Self-care allows Weinman to provide
BEST CARE G CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
oing from nearly homeless to nursing instructor, Mo Weinman has accomplished much in her life. Until a few weeks ago, Weinman was working as a fulltime critical care nurse at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis and part-time as a second-year clinical nursing instructor at Linn Benton Community College in Albany. She is cross-trained to work in the intensive care unit. She has scaled back a few hours at the hospital to complete her master’s degree in nursing education. At home, she is raising four children, ages 5 and 18 and twins who are 20, with her husband. Weinman is from Southern California, where she and her ex-husband struggled with homelessness. She said they just couldn’t seem to find a place to settle. Her cousin in Albany invited her to visit. The couple decided to stay, but the marriage dissolved. In 2003, she was a newly single mom raising twins, toddlers at the time, and needed to provide them with health insurance. A television advertisement for the nurses’ aide program at LBCC mentioned it provided insurance, and Weinman looked into it and signed up. Shortly after she started as a certified nurses’ aide, she discovered the hospital has a reimbursement program for continuing education and thought it was something she could do. “I began pre-nursing classes, realized I really loved nursing and found out it was something I wanted to make a career of,” she said. Weinman began her education while others her age were completing theirs. She took one class at a time to get her nursing degree. It took her 10 years to complete, but she is proud of every step of the way.
In 2012, she graduated from LBCC and got married “to the most amazing person.” “There was a lot of life stuff in the middle, and I just kept plugging away until it was done,” she said. The best part of being a nurse, Weinman said, is being able to meet somebody on what is the worst day of their life and provide comfort to them. “I had a very small experience of being a patient in the hospital when I had my twins,” she said. “I remember how scary it was to show pain and feel confused about what was happening and then to get comfort from your nurse or nurses’ aides. “I know what it’s like to be in the hospital and to be in another state, and I was scared. Especially with stuff like the pandemic. We were having to provide comfort for people who weren’t able to get it from their own families, and that felt really special to me.” Weinman said she is proud of her coworkers and how they worked through the pandemic. “Not just the nurses,” she said. “The housekeepers, aides, therapists, administrators … everybody really figured out how to work together as a team and we were thrown into this. There was no warning or training, and things were changing daily.” One of her twins, who has some special needs, recently was hired as an entrance screener at the hospital. “I get to see him every time I come to work and it brings me joy,” Weinman said. “A lot of my coworkers have watched him grow up. It’s been cool to watch him grow up and become part of the family at work.” A big challenge is finding time for selfcare. “I’ve started to put myself first and realize how many other things benefit when I take care of myself,” she said. “When I care for myself first, I can provide really good care to other people.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
Thank You! to nurses everywhere.
Helpers. Healers. Heros
#NationalNursesWeek
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e v s e e r s y r w u he n re to being for
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16 | MAY 2021 CELEBRATE NURSES
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