Betty Lee
Those nominated included Ron Roberts, Rachel Forshee, Valerie Goodaker, Betsy Walker, Betty Lee, Erin Genty, Sergei Moshenskiy, Kathy Genest, Nancy Eisched, Lindsey Ortega, Deb Stevens, Paula Holley, Sherry Davis, Kat Steele, Tamara Whittenbarger, Beth Newsome,Collette Cook, Jan Riley, Alicia Guthrie, Cheryl Adams, Tina Kelly, Kimberly Rogers, Nicole Calfee, Carolyn Hicks and Amos McClellan.
The Patient Choice Award recognizes the quality care, comfort and compassion offered by the nurses at SkyRidge, and honors one nurse in particular.
As part of National Nurse’s Week, Betty Lee, RN, was presented with the award at a hospital ceremony.
“Sometimes it’s just too hard to spot one nurse when there are so many nurses in our hospital doing such an incredible job caring for our patients,” says Bernadette DePrez, chief nursing officer for SkyRidge. “That’s why we asked patients to help us make the choice. They see the little things that matter so much on a very personal level.”
Those who know Lee aren’t surprised because nursing is in her blood. After all, as a child, Lee was the one to whom all the neighborhood kids brought sick and injured animals. There were the birds. The sick kittens. And the tiny baby squirrel that Lee fed with an eye dropper and raised until it was old enough to be released into the wild.
Then, too, Lee comes from a family steeped in the nursing tradition. Her mother was a nurse as are both her sisters and her two sisters-in-law.
Lee joined them in her career choice, and worked at SkyRidge from the age of 16, beginning as a nurse’s aide.
“It’s the best job anyone could ever have,” Lee said of nursing. “I’m very lucky to have a job I thoroughly enjoy.”
Lee loves her job and working at SkyRidge so much, in fact, in her 44 years of working there she has never once called in sick.
She did have a bout with cancer once, though. But she didn’t consider her cancer to be “severe” and kept on working as a nurse during her chemotherapy.
So Lee was surprised when SkyRidge received a letter from Julie Zehr praising Lee for the way she treated her and her daughter, Carly, a Lee University freshman who was hospitalized for an illness.
Although she praised all the nurses on Lee’s floor, Ms. Zehr singled out Lee, who “tended not only to the physical needs but the emotional and spiritual needs as well . . . with a willing attitude and joy.”
They presented Lee with a plaque after their hospital stay and said they would be “friends for life.”
Zehr’s letter of appreciation was just one of several that Lee’s patients sent about her which resulted in her receiving the 2010 Patient Choice Award. This award is given to nurses who are nominated by the patients they serve.
“Betty stands out as a wonderful example of what a pediatric nurse should be,” said Elisa Bishop, RN, BSN, director of Women’s and Children’s Services. “The care, devotion, and compassion she gives to patients and families alike exceed their expectations.”
But Lee doesn’t think she treated the Zehrs or the other patients who sent letters any differently from the way she treats all her patients. In fact, she doesn’t consider herself any different from any of the other nurses she works with on her floor.
“They all love their jobs and care about their patients,” she said.
