National Nurses Week 2021
As part of National Nurses Week (May 6 – 12), we honored the more than 4 million nurses and LPNs in the U.S. and millions more across the globe who persevered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of those are 235 of our BHG nurses whom we celebrated for going above and beyond the call of duty to make sure none of our patients went without care.
Julie Koenig, RN
Chief Operation Officer
One of my earliest memories, around the age of 5, was that I wanted to be a nurse. I am so blessed to come from a large extended family that is made up of many healthcare professionals including six nurses. Over the years, I’ve witnessed how this amazing group of nurses have given selflessly to their patients and communities, and in return, how this profession has given back to them. They also passed the love for nursing and patient care on to me. This coupled with growing up in rural Kentucky with little to no access to good healthcare, has fueled my desire to drive access to care in the rural communities and set the stage early for my clinical career. No matter the area of healthcare or the disease state, driving access to care and treatment is and will always be my passion.
Nurses are truly heroes of our communities and of BHG. Whether you are a nurse in a treatment facility, leading our teams or focused on quality and compliance, without each of you, we would not be able to do what we do. Simply put, our nurses directly or indirectly save lives every day.
I truly believe we should be encouraging our youth to enter the field of nursing. As part of the nursing community, I feel it is our responsibility to support the next generation to see and feel the amazing nursing profession and maybe even set the stage for the next generation of heroes.
I would like to leave you with the words of one of my favorite poets, Maya Angelou, as I feel it describes my own internal spirit of nursing. “People may forget what you said, people may forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Shari Garceau, MSN, RN, CMAC, CCM, ACM-RN, CRCR, CLSSGB,
Director of Quality Management and Auditing
I wanted to be a nurse for one reason: I wanted to make a difference to other people. My sister-in-law is also a nurse and my mentor who is now a practicing DNP in her own clinic serving the geriatric population. After doing this work for almost 27 years, my goal is to mentor other nurses. I do not believe in the historical phrase that “nurses eat their young.” We nurture our young.
Nurses are not just the people who give medications. We advocate for our patients and are often the one at the bedside giving a listening ear, a comforting word or a compassionate touch. We teach, empower and support in addition to providing the actual medical care.
I am passionate about meeting at-risk populations where they are and helping fill the gaps in healthcare. Everyone deserves to be seen as people first, then as a person who needs the help that we can provide. I joined this specialty because the behavioral health and addiction populations are the most underserved groups of people.
Nurses are the mediators between patients and care providers. We are trained to recognize issues with patients with our eyes, ears and hearts. We can look at a patient and identify a potential problem. More nurses recognize patients at risk of an adverse event and intervene than any other specialty. Nurses rock!
Advice I have for my fellow BHG nurses:
- Treat every patient like they are your family or yourself. How would you like someone to react to you in your time of need? See them as people, not “addicts.”
- Take a deep breath before reacting to someone who is upset. Then respond in a way that would help you when you are upset.
- Rejoice in your knowledge and your heart for caring for others.
- Take the best practice of each nurse you work with and incorporate it into your practice. The next nurse will take the best of what you do and add it to the best of others. This is how nursing keeps growing and improving the care we provide.
Jaimee A. McGuire, DNP, NP-C, CHPSE, CHC,
Director of Regulatory Affairs
I chose to be a nurse because I wanted a stable career and one that offered various options. Before becoming a nurse practitioner, I worked in various inpatient and outpatient settings. I spent the first six years of my nurse practitioner career working in HIV/AIDS care and then moved to addiction medicine at BHG.
Addiction medicine and what we do at BHG is important to me because I have a strong family history of addiction issues and I know that we make a difference working with a population that many healthcare providers try to avoid.
Our nurses should be celebrated because they are imperative to the success of BHG. Nurses are less recognized than others in the medical field, despite being front-line and working directly with patients every day. Many nurses work holidays and don’t get to celebrate with their friends and family. I remember many missed Christmases when my daughter was growing up. Giving nurses their own week of recognition and appreciation goes a long way toward boosting morale and engagement.
As a nurse myself, I am so proud of the work our nursing teams do and the compassionate and respectful care they provide to our patients. We could have chosen any career, but we chose nursing!
Thao Le, BSN, RN
Medication Nurse, Overland Park
“Khoe khong!” Vietnamese greeting for “How are you? Are you well?”
In addition to National Nurses Week, May is also Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We’re grateful to Thao Le, a Medication Nurse at BHG Overland Park, for sharing her perspective not only about nursing, but also as a Vietnamese American.
I was born in Wichita, KS, and my parents are from Vietnam. They migrated to America after the war to start a new life and have children so that we could have opportunities that weren’t possible in their home country.
When I was little, I didn’t get to learn much about my heritage, culture and the language because my parents were always so busy working to provide for us. Growing up it was hard because I would compare myself to other students who were living a totally different culture. During holidays, my peers would talk about celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas and I felt left out because those weren’t holidays that we celebrated.
I always felt ashamed of being different. As I got older, I began to appreciate my background more. In college, I joined Sigma Psi Zeta, an Asian American sorority. I started asking my parents questions about my culture and have gotten better with my language and learned to cook some Vietnamese foods like banh bo which I’ve made and brought to work to share with my colleagues. Banh bo is a Vietnamese cake where the inside looks like marbled beef. “Bo” means beef in Vietnamese.
It’s common for Asian parents who migrated to the U.S. to put a lot of pressure on their children to go into medicine or engineering. Mine pushed me to go into pharmacy, but at year three in college, I decided it wasn’t for me and I found nursing.
My parents taught me to work hard and the sacrifices they made to ensure their children could have a good education and life still affects me to this day. Because of them, I have a strong work ethic and put 110% into work and school.
I’m often altruistic and tend to put work and patients before myself. I know I shouldn’t for my own well-being. My passion for this work comes from my personal experiences with people in my life who have struggled with addiction and who have mental health issues. In the Asian culture, there’s a stigma and a lack of education about mental health. My sister had a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with Schizoid personality disorder. My parents didn’t’ really understand. They thought it was like a light switch you could turn off and on and didn’t understand the neurobiology.
Today my sister is doing well. She’s proof that treatment works and that there’s help. She has things about her that society doesn’t consider normal. But that’s where she is and she’s happy with that. If she’s happy, I’m happy.
I joined BHG 10 months ago and have always been in the mental health space. I’m currently in a psychiatric nurse practitioner program at Maryville University which I’ll complete next April. I received my BSN RN from Newman University.
I believe we should celebrate nurses because no matter if it’s a hospital or outpatient clinic setting, the nurses are the most involved with patients. At BHG, we see them every day and are their consistent point of contact. During the pandemic, if patients reported symptoms of COVID-19, we gloved-up, gowned-up and dosed them at their car. I’m glad we were able to accommodate them so that they didn’t experience any breaks in treatment. I would hate to turn away patients because of that. That’s what we’re here for.
Speaking of making people feel accepted and comfortable, if you have Vietnamese patients, I encourage you to say this traditional Vietnamese greeting when they arrive, “khoe khong.” Pronounced kweh kong, it means “How are you? Are you well?” You can send me an email or call me with this greeting, too!
Vaccine Campaign Winners
Check out our April Vaccination Campaign winners who are doing well by doing good across the country. Each of these awesome colleagues received $100 e-gift cards. Thank you for taking care of “us” so that we can take care of our communities.
Heather Gates, Counselor
BHG Westminster Treatment Center
Mary Rabalais, Counselor
BHG Lake Charles Treatment Center
Whitney Smith, Counselor Supervisor
BHG Paintsville Treatment Center
How YOU could win $100
In support of BHG’s new infectious disease vaccination policy, we are encouraging team members to vaccinate to prevent infectious diseases. And for everyone that gets vaccinated and enters their name, you can earn a cash prize! We’ll be awarding a $100 gift card to three winners each month. Step One is to get your vaccine and proof that you did, either as a receipt for the cost of the vaccine or a vaccine dosing card. Step Two is easy: simply take a photo of both sides of the receipt or vaccine card and attach it to an email sent to [email protected]. Our HR team will add your name into the random drawing.
You can find both the vaccination policy and a COVID-19 Vaccination FAQ on our HR SharePoint. These documents will be updated as we receive relevant additional questions or new/revised information. If you have a question about the COVID-19 vaccination that is not addressed in the document, please reach out to [email protected].
Note: Above winners voluntarily granted permission for their names to be used in this announcement.
BHG Spartanburg Celebrates Team
