2022 Nurses Honorees

Became an RN: 1993

Employer: Appomattox River Medical

As a kid, I planned on becoming a lawyer because I like to talk – and I like to argue! But one day in high school, my grandmother called and said my grandfather had collapsed.

I got to their house before the ambulance, and I found my grandfather lying on the floor. He’d had a stroke, and I didn’t know what to do to help him. I felt so helpless. That’s when I decided to become a nurse.

My grandfather recovered and lived a long life. I was even fortunate, many years later, to be his nurse in the hospital. I worked in several hospital departments over the years because I wanted to learn everything I could about different nursing positions. My primary unit was the ICU.

But while working in a hospital setting was valuable for advancing my nursing education and skills, I decided to join a family medical practice after completing the nurse practitioner program at Virginia Commonwealth University. I wanted to give back to my community and take care of the people I know.

Working in a family practice allows me to spend every day with a variety of patients in my community, from newborns to the elderly. Plus, it allows me to focus on health promotion and prevention. In a hospital, your patients usually are acutely sick. But in family medicine, you can head off long-term problems and ideally keep your patients out of the hospital.

Nurse practitioners play a valuable role in family practices because we can treat many patients’ needs if their primary doctor isn’t available. I might see between two dozen and three dozen patients daily, and for most of them, I’m their primary care provider. Some have even called me “Doc Stacy,” and when I remind them I’m not a doctor, their response is usually, “Well, you’re my doctor!”

I’ve been a nurse for 29 years now, and it’s humbling to be introduced as someone who helped that person’s family member or friend. My community trusts me, and that’s a great feeling. I don’t take this trust lightly. Every day when I wake up, I first thank God for allowing me to have the day. And then I ask for the knowledge and strength to help people – and to do so with a calm, caring attitude.

I’m a full partner in my practice, which is rare for a nurse. I’m proud of that. And I’m proud that my children have followed me into the profession. My daughter is a medical assistant, and my son is in the nursing track at Radford University. We need more nurses. We need help. Amid the pandemic, we’re busier than ever.

As challenging as the past couple years have been, I love being a nurse. So many patients have touched me.  And I keep a piece of every one of them with me.

Family:husband Matthew; sons Tyler and Tanner

Became an RN:2001

Employer: Richmond and Henrico Health Districts, Virginia Department of Health

When I started high school, I was diagnosed with cancer and went to Gainesville, Florida, for treatment. I was scared, but I soon discovered how dedicated the medical staff was to serving their patients. They became like my family.

I especially remember a nursing student who came into my room and would just talk to me. She told me about her job, she said I was courageous – and she even offered to be pen pals. Those simple conversations made a difference in my recovery. The treatment I received as a youth inspired me to become a nurse.

And I’ve never been prouder to be a nurse than I am right now. As a public health nurse supervisor, my team includes eight nurses and three CHWs – that’s shorthand for community health workers. Nurses and CHWs have always been important, but the pandemic has highlighted our place as the backbone of health care.

In September 2020, funding became available for the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts to add CHWs to Henrico County, allowing us to introduce a program there we had modeled in Richmond.

The role of a CHW is to help people meet basic needs, such as getting food, paying utility bills and even finding a job. During the pandemic, CHWs also helped residents get tested for and vaccinated against COVID-19, and find other health care resources.

CHWs make special connections in the community. One member of my team is from Sudan and specializes in supporting immigrant and refugee populations. Another is Latinx and helps us serve Spanish speakers. Another had lived in subsidized housing in Henrico. Through their life experiences, they build trust in skeptical or underserved communities, and they make important connections that improve lives.

The people we serve are always inspiring, too. Before I was a supervisor, I was a public health nurse here, and we sponsored a refugee clinic. I vividly remember one family from the Republic of the Congo. It was a mother and three children who spoke Swahili and French. The oldest child was able to help interpret.

When the mother shared her amazing story, it changed me. What she had been through to get to the United States made me realize that people can find more strength than we could imagine. We will do whatever it takes to care for our children and family.

These are the people we help, and they are why I am humbled to be part of my team. All of our members are leaders. All are dedicated to serving our community by improving the health of children and adults.

The pandemic has really opened people’s eyes to the many opportunities within the field of nursing. For my colleagues in public health, they showed that it was our moment to rise to the occasion – and shine.

Family: wife Rachel; daughter Lillian; son Eddie

Became an RN: 2012

Employer: VCU Health

Many nurses will tell you they had their eyes set on the medical field since they were kids. I didn’t realize I wanted to be a nurse until I was deployed overseas as a medic in 2005, during the Iraq War.

I’d signed up for service in the Army Reserve while I was a student at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. Then I spent a year on the Kuwait/Iraq border, providing ground evacuation for sick and wounded soldiers.

It was an intense and rewarding experience that helped me realize I wanted to enter the medical field full-time and serve my community. So after returning to the States, I enrolled in VCU’s nursing program.

I deployed again in 2009, this time to northern Iraq. A year later, I returned and resumed my studies. The deployment meant I took a little longer to finish the program, but it was worth it. I love helping others, whether they’re soldiers or civilians.

Since graduating, I’ve held a number of positions at VCU Health, including serving as a floor nurse for cardiology patients, and as an ICU nurse and clinical coordinator in the surgical trauma intensive care unit. Now I’m the nurse manager for the medical intermediate and intensive care unit, which is our primary COVID care unit.

Being a nurse means interacting with people during some of the roughest periods of their lives. The past couple of years have been particularly tough for medical workers, too. Though much of the world shifted to teleworking during the pandemic, we were still onsite every day. And one of the biggest emotional challenges has been supporting our COVID patients and their loved ones amid visitor restrictions.

Imagine being hospitalized without being able to see your loved ones. Imagine worrying about their well-being without being able to touch or comfort them in person. The responsibility of providing that one-on-one comfort has shifted to medical workers, which puts us further on the front line of care. As a leader, I’m often focused on doing everything I can to serve my dedicated colleagues.

Through it all, I’ve remained a medic in the Reserve – 18 years and counting. My two kids have learned to adjust to my training schedule and the possibility I might be deployed again.

The military might seem like it’s a long ways away from a civilian hospital, but the teamwork that drives nursing feels a lot like the camaraderie you experience in the military. Nursing and the military are similar in other ways, too. Neither is glamorous, but both are vital. And both allow me to serve something other than myself.

Becoming a nurse wasn’t always in the cards for me. But sitting here today, I can’t think of a career that would give me the fulfillment that nursing has.

Became an RN:1995

Employer: HCA Henrico Doctors’ Hospital

Nursing goes far beyond administering treatments that help patients recover. That’s because nursing in an art – the art of caring – and it’s much more than medicine.

My introduction to nursing came from my paternal grandmother. She was an LPN at St. Philip Hospital in downtown Richmond, which served Black residents and whose nursing school trained Black nurses. When I was a girl, I would accompany her as she traveled around Church Hill, tending to the sick and homeless and teaching first-aid classes. Because of my grandmother, I earned my first-aid pin at age 14. To this day, I wear her nursing pin every year during National Nurses Week.

My parents also influenced how I practice nursing, and I’m still very close to them. My father, a military veteran, centered our home on the values of faith, family and respect. My mother provided holistic care for her mom as she aged.

I’m now director of nursing for the medical care and general surgery units at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, and my top priority is to ensure patient safety and well-being. I know from experience how meaningful this is: When I was 30, my condition became grave during a medical procedure, so I can relate to the anxiety and pain that patients and their families feel.

Sometimes care requires looking beyond the medical chart. A few years ago, a patient who had been married for 79 years entered hospice care. He wanted to take his wife to the movies one last time. Such a trip wasn’t medically possible, but my team found a way to carry out his wish.

We enlisted everyone from housekeeping to IT staff members. We set up a big-screen TV and recliners in his hospital room, and he enjoyed Humphrey Bogart films with his wife beside him – and his grandchildren in sleeping bags on the floor. I will never forget the sparkle in his eyes.

Part of this big-picture approach to nursing includes caring for the caregiver. Being at the bedside of a suffering patient is stressful, and we take on the emotions and feelings of our patients and their families. We carry our own concerns, too. When COVID-19 arrived, we certainly worried about contracting the virus and taking it home to our families.

But our job requires that we face our fears, and that’s why a nursing staff is like a family. We cry on each other’s shoulders. We raise each other’s children. We form unshakeable relationships. When we take better care of each other, we take better care of our patients.

As proud as I am to be a nurse, I’m just as excited to train the next generation who will care for our community. I still remember Yvonne Ellis, my nurse preceptor, who showed me countless ways to make personal connections. These relationships – with my patients and my fellow nurses – form the foundation of the art of caring. And I’ve never forgotten that.

Family:husband Travis; sons Travis Jr., Phillip and Jordan; daughter Kaneshia

Became an RN:2006

Employer:Brandermill Woods

From the beginning of my career, geriatrics has been my passion. Seniors have so much wisdom to share. They have inspired me for nearly 30 years at Brandermill Woods.

I’ve always enjoyed taking care of people, and my aunt, who was a nurse, was a big influence on me as a child.  But it was personal experiences as an adult that shaped my approach to nursing.

The first happened when I was in nursing school, studying to be an LPN.  I was already overtaxed, juggling school and work, when I learned I had stage 4 colon cancer. It was tough keeping up with daily responsibilities while enduring chemotherapy. But one of my residents in the senior living community told me: “Keep going. Don’t give up. You’re made for this.” I say the same thing to my residents now.

I was so proud to finish nursing school. Though my father passed away before I graduated, just knowing how much pride he had in me made the accomplishment extra special.

I’ve been cancer-free for 22 years, but my health journey during school helped me grow as a nurse. Receiving care as a cancer patient gave me a different perspective as a professional caregiver. I’ve been on both sides of the process, and I know what each feels like.

I experienced something similar after my son Phillip was born with severe autism 27 years ago. I knew then, as I do now, that others will have to take care of him when I can’t. I’ve always believed in treating others as you want to be treated, and I think of that when I’m caring for others. At every turn, I want to do the right thing for them and their families, just as I hope others will for Phillip.

That principle drives my work as a health care administrator. I manage more than 80 staff members who provide rehabilitative services for seniors and significant care for residents with dementia. We maintain their quality of life with dignity and respect. But we don’t, and can’t, work alone.

Our residents’ families play such a vital role, because seniors with dementia need loved ones in their life – people who are familiar with them and to them. Family members help us, as caregivers, to communicate and build trust with residents who are facing frightening changes in their lives.

That’s part of why geriatrics can be tough. But it’s personal, too. My residents become like family to me, and it’s difficult to watch them pass away. Each time, that’s a part of me that’s gone.

You have to want to be here, in this field. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I hope I’m giving back at least some of the care that was given to me – and will be given to my family. This is my calling.

Became an RN:2015

Employer: Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center

Nursing is my second career, if you don’t count raising a family. I started working part-time at a marketing agency when I was 19, and I worked my way up to be a vice president of the company.

Being a nurse came later, after my youngest daughter started kindergarten. By then, I’d left the business world and had been a stay-at-home mom for several years. My two youngest daughters have special needs, and I needed to care for them and protect them. In fact, they’re a big part of the reason I went into nursing.

As a kid, I’d wanted to become a teacher. Later, I imagined myself designing and operating a small nursing home for senior citizens. So I’ve always been a natural nurturer. Being a nurse allowed me to advocate for my daughters.

When I was in nursing school, I thought that as I rotated through different medical departments, I’d know what I wanted to do. But I loved all of the experiences. So in 2015, I accepted a position in the cardiopulmonary unit at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center, and I’ve been here ever since.

My unit is one step down from the intensive care unit. We provide care for an array of chronic and acute issues, including ones that affect the heart, airways and lungs. In the past two years, we’ve cared for a lot of COVID-19 patients.

I remember when the outbreak first started – I came to work one day, and there was a plastic barrier set up across a hallway. I was terrified. That was in the beginning, when everybody was so scared. And a lot of us struggled with the amount of death we saw. I’ll never forget those patients.

We had one woman whose organs were failing, and she opted for hospice care rather than face treatments that couldn’t promise more than uncertain outcomes. I was in her room with another nurse when the woman said goodbye on the phone to her five children. She was so strong in her faith, but the other nurse and I had to leave the room, sobbing. She died days later.

Even so, more of our patients lived than died. And among all the things I’ve done so far in my career, I’m proudest of being a COVID nurse. As hard as the pandemic has been, it has made me a better nurse, and it has deepened my faith.

I’m also grateful for the team I work with. I love them, and that makes a big difference when you work a stressful job. These days, as a charge nurse on our unit, I have to take care of staffing and reports – and I enjoy the responsibility. But my favorite role is still to walk into a room and take care of my patients. I’m so happy when I can do that.

Family:husband Kelvin

Became an RN:1993

Employer: VCU Health System

One of my middle school teachers, Sue Perry, ignited in me a passion for the sciences. Initially I pursued my ambitions as a pharmacy student, but I realized that nursing would truly fuse my love of biology and chemistry with direct interaction with patients and families.

In nursing school, I found my calling working with children. I later had the opportunity to develop a relationship with the late Dr. John Mickell, a pioneer in pediatric critical care, who encouraged me and helped open doors to pediatric nursing. That was a career dream come true.

Since then, I have stepped into leadership roles within VCU Health System. I now serve as interim chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services for VCU Medical Center, and I’ll be returning to my role as an operational leader at Children’s Hospital of Richmond. I like being able to effect change at an organizational level, where I can make a difference not only for our patients and families but also for our team.

But I’ll always remember my time on the ground in the pediatric intensive care unit – and how that helped shape who I am as a nurse. Those experiences built the foundation for all the roles I’ve taken on through the years.

Children are often vulnerable, and they need a strong advocate. In pediatrics, we see patients who have a wide range of needs. Some are very sick. Some have been in bad accidents. Others have been neglected or abused. Their parents and other family members require timely information, and a degree of care themselves.

As a pediatric nurse, you always remember you’re caring for children and families who likely are facing the greatest challenge in their life. Our fundamental responsibility is to bring our best self to every situation – all of our background, knowledge and skills – so that we can facilitate care and help them navigate whatever lies ahead.

There often are many reasons for optimism about outcomes for our young patients. But sometimes there are not.

I’ll never forget one child who came to our unit with grievous internal injuries after a motor vehicle accident. This was some time ago, when open visitation policies were not as common as they are today. Our team knew that the child would not survive, and I pushed hard to allow the three adults in this child’s life to be present at the bedside through the night as we removed life support.

I frequently reflect on that instance of advocacy, and I see it as a pivotal moment for me. I hope the decision helped the child’s loved ones, that it gave them some measure of peace during this heartbreaking episode. I know for sure that it taught me a skill I’ve carried throughout my career: how to lead with the heart.

Became an RN:2004

Employer:Central Virginia VA Health Care System

Military service runs deep in my family. My father served in Germany. My oldest uncle served in Korea, and my youngest served in Vietnam.

Their experiences shaped me as a child. When I was in third grade, I used to wear an olive-green dress and pretend I was a nurse with my friends Billy and Greg. I remember making a splint out of tree limbs and dragging Billy to the helicopter that Greg was flying.

But my most vivid childhood memory was accompanying my dad to what was then known as McGuire Veterans Hospital in Richmond. He’d been injured on the job as a pulp woodcutter, and a neighbor drove us to the hospital, with my dad lying in the back of a station wagon. I was 7, and seeing wounded Vietnam veterans being rolled on stretchers through the hallways both terrified and moved me in ways I didn’t understand until years later.

So it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that I became a nurse in the Army. I even ended up working for the same VA health system that cared for my dad decades before. You might say I’ve come full circle. It took me a while to get there, though.

I volunteered to join the Army three years out of high school, and after graduating from the Army’s practical nursing program, I served as a nurse in South Korea. Later, I was a medic on an ambulance team in Bosnia. Between my active-duty service and my time in the National Guard, I was in the military for 15 years and nine months. The only reason I retired was because I was too severely injured in Iraq to continue my service.

After recovering, I worked in a civilian hospital in Fairbanks, Alaska, while my husband finished his own military service. Then we moved back to Virginia to be closer to my parents. Eventually, after stints as an adjunct nursing instructor and a nurse in a civilian hospital’s maternity unit, I accepted a position at the Central Virginia VA Health Care System.

I’d completed the circle.

These days I develop training programs for nursing staff and focus on improving aspects of the Richmond hospital’s nursing system. I ran a COVID vaccine clinic that provided 50,000 vaccinations for veterans, staff and other patrons.

In the first portion of my career, I cared for our wounded warriors with my own hands. Now I train the hands that care for them, and I strive to ensure we have enough of those hands to meet demand.

At first it was difficult to take a step away from direct care like that. But I’ve come to see that the knowledge, skills and abilities I developed over my career as a nurse have lead me to where I am today. And I’m striving to make a difference in the life of a warrior every day.

Family:sons Deonte, Jayden, Christian and Ashton; daughter Alana

Became an RN:1998

Employer: Patient First (Midlothian)

My family is from St. Croix, which is a small island and home to about 40,000 people. My mother and grandmother were two very strong women who were my role models – they were simply kind and generous.

It was somewhat of a culture shock when I came to the mainland, in Florida, for college. In some ways, people in need could be overlooked in a crowd. But St. Croix is such a small community that helping others is a way of life there. That same spirit is why I became a nurse.

I started my career in a more conventional hospital setting and worked with women’s health. But I felt called to urgent care. I like change and the unexpected. I’ve been with Patient First for more than 20 years, and I’m now director of medical support at our Midlothian primary and urgent care center.

Most patients have little idea how much goes on under our roof – and they are often surprised to find how comprehensive our clinics are. Yes, we treat unexpected illnesses and injuries – the situations that help save patients the time and expense of a hospital emergency room visit. But many of our practitioners are primary care providers. We have patients who visit us for that ongoing care, and some even come from out of town to maintain those relationships with our doctors and nurses.

That sense of connection is important in practicing health care, especially amid the pandemic. And my proudest accomplishment is being part of this team over the past two years.

I was among the many staff members who were exposed to COVID-19, and I got sick. But when I was down for 14 days, my colleagues had me covered – I didn’t even have to ask. During the busiest, most hectic times, they would recognize that someone needed a break and come in early or stay late.

It is selfless acts like these that I will always remember and that define who we are. We were taking care of one another as well as our patients.

I’ll also always remember the gratitude of patients, even those who waited hours to be treated – that’s how busy we were. To have those patients go out of their way to offer a “thank you” as they were leaving was a touching and memorable experience.

There is no doubt the pandemic has been exhausting for everyone, especially in health care. More than ever, I see the positive impact that we nurses have on people’s lives every day.

In many parts of the country, health care workers left the profession because of the pandemic’s strain. Two years later, I still have all my staff. If I had to do it over, I’d do it again with the same people right beside me.

Became an RN:2016

Employer: HCA Chippenham Hospital

In nursing, as in life, not everything goes as planned.

I studied nursing at the University of Lynchburg, and I intended to enter the profession on a labor and delivery unit or a mother/baby unit. But I soon discovered that turnover is not as fast in these units as in some other parts of health care. Also, supervisors often prefer to hire nurses with experience and time-management skills gained in other medical settings.

But the curveball life threw at me as my career began turned out to be a happy one. I’m now a nurse on the interventional cardiac unit at Chippenham Hospital, and I’ve found a specialty I love.

We take care of a lot of heart patients. Some go to the catheterization lab to get stents placed. Others need more general care in a stepdown unit, which is one step below the ICU. Being part of these patients’ treatment – and especially their recovery – is extremely rewarding.

I also continue to learn so much in my first decade as a nurse. Initially I tried to “do everything and be everything” – I put all my energy into being the best I could, and I was humbled to be honored by my employer in my rookie year. But I learned quickly that teamwork is as much a part of being a successful nurse as individual initiative.

That’s a fundamental truth about nursing: It’s a 24-hour job, and no matter how much any one nurse gives, we must rely on our colleagues. There is too much responsibility for any one person, and there is so much at stake.

Some of our patients come to our unit and stay with us for months. Recovery is a long process, and sometimes we, as a team, have to step back and regroup. It’s this collaboration – between the day and night shifts, and among different health care specialists – that truly supports patients and their families.

That’s one reason the pandemic has been such a test. Among the many difficulties we faced were staffing challenges as colleagues left to address the need for travel nurses – and that need was dire in some parts of the country. But whatever the pandemic sent our way, we adapted as a group, just as we do with our patients.

Even with the stresses of nursing, especially in the past two years, I still embrace the moments of levity that ease the tension. I’ve had a patient offer to buy me a fur coat – and another who said he’d marry me! (I politely declined.)

But there’s nothing like watching a patient go from being intubated, unable to talk, to walking out of the hospital. That moment – rooted in the patient, the family, the nursing staff and other health care professionals working together – is what I cherish the most.