Nurse Hero Stories: Katherine Jane Werth shares a moment of team motivation

To support healthcare workers through the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched a Nurse Hero Scholarship a few weeks ago. The scholarship included access to our Certificate in Nurse Leadership as well as a free micro-course in resilience.

As the following entry to our Nurse Hero Scholarship shows, any support for front line responders is direly needed. The professionals themselves are also showing amazing strength and motivation to maximize resources and to help each other succeed through the pandemic. Katherine Jane Werth, who has been a nurse for 17 years, shares a story from CHI Immanuel Medical Center.

Hear from Katherine

“During this trying time, I have witnessed many moments of heroism. Our nurses are not only caregivers to our patients, but their support persons through many challenging moments where the patient’s family is not present. This has added another layer of responsibility that can be tiring. Communicating to family and elevating the importance of this through different ways of technology has become another focus. They are letting God work through them more than ever before.

 

The team’s patience with the rapid changes that impact their personal life has been a gift. Our whole healthcare system have become novices with COVID-19. We are all trying to navigate our new norms. During this challenging time, we consistently remind our teams what our calling is: We are called to serve the vulnerable. This is hard work. But this challenging time is what we trained for.

 

There are some moments of tension: One of the teams I lead had a very busy day once, and they became negative through this. By the afternoon, they all came together for a pow-wow, recognized the negativity and did a group hug. They moved forward and rocked the rest of their shift which is what is best for our patients. This may not seem like a heroic moment, but it made a difference with the team as well as our patients.”