Sanford nurse Jackee Haak knew she wished to work in well being care from a really younger age.
“I’ve a reminiscence of enjoying ‘emergency room’ with my dolls once I was little, and I grew up for a very long time pondering I wished to be a health care provider,” stated Haak, an RN at Sanford Medical Center Fargo in North Dakota. “But once I was 18, I had foot surgical procedure and nearly all of my time was spent with the nurse and never the physician. I made a decision that I’d need extra time with the affected person, in order that form of modified my course of pondering, and I made a decision nursing could be a greater match for me.”
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Haak is now the nursing director of the household birth middle in Fargo and he or she spends a substantial amount of time with sufferers, together with new child infants who begin their lives in want of care on the facility’s neonatal intensive care unit.
Veteran management
Haak, who began her profession at Sanford in 2003, isn’t simply identified for her management expertise in the hospital, nevertheless. She can also be a veteran, having served in the National Guard and deploying to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 — a spot the place, satirically, she didn’t use her nursing expertise in any respect.
“I used to be really area communications,” stated Haak. “We received to run the encryption and units for the web routers and telephones. Not in any respect medical associated.”
That service finally led her to be concerned in the launch of Sanford’s Veteran Employee Resource Group. Sanford is called one of many nation’s finest locations for veterans to work, and together with sharing that bond with a few of her co-workers, Haak additionally leads the Veterans Ambassador Program, the place she leads a bunch of veterans who volunteer on the hospital.
“It’s not unusual for us to have affected person customer volunteers all through the entire hospital, however this particularly focuses on our veteran sufferers. The volunteers will go and go to these sufferers and verify in on them and ensure they’re doing okay and see what they want,” stated Haak.
“Not to sound tacky, nevertheless it’s an on the spot bond. Whether they’re making an attempt to navigate the VA well being system — which may be actually difficult — or in the event that they’re having some yucky reminiscences that they need to speak about, when any individual walks in and says ‘Hey, I used to be in there too. I perceive the language you’re talking,’ we’re in a position to give them a bit little bit of consolation and camaraderie,” Haak stated.
Nurses Week recognition
For Nurses Week, Haak focuses most of her power not on herself, however on the group that she leads in the household birth middle.
“I believe it’s actually vital, particularly after the final couple of years. We’ve requested an increasing number of of the nursing workers, as a result of we’ve by no means been via a pandemic earlier than,” stated Haak. “There are occasions when it may be a thankless job, however they should know the way vital their work is.”
That stated, Haak’s work is fairly vital too — to her group of nurses, to her veterans group and volunteers, and naturally to all the sufferers she’s helped alongside the best way. Just like she wished to do all these years in the past when she first dreamed of being in well being care.
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Fargo, Nursing and Nursing Support, Sanford Stories, Veterans, Women’s
https://news.sanfordhealth.org/people/nursing/sanford-nurse-leads-birth-center-veterans-groups-in-fargo/
