Nurses 2023 Honorees

Once again, we asked our readers to nominate a nurse who has made a significant impact in their lives or the lives of others. A panel of local, experienced judges determined our honorees -- seven from Omaha and three from Council Bluffs -- and we’re introducing the them in this section.

All of our honorees are representative of the national theme: They all make a difference.

The World-Herald and Daily Nonpareil are once again proud to partner with our presenting sponsors, RTG Medical and Methodist Jennie Edmundson, as well as our supporting sponsors, Methodist Health Systems and Iowa Western Community College, to honor these outstanding nurses.

Whether this week, next week, next month or every day, we say "thank you" to our local nurses for everything they do for their patients and their communities.

Lavelle took pre-nursing classes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before earning her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2011. Following graduation, she worked as a traveling nurse at a number of Omaha-area hospitals, Milwaukee-area hospitals, the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She then returned to Omaha where she earned a Master of Public Health degree from UNMC in 2017.

Now chronic disease coordinator at Charles Drew Health Center, Lavelle utilizes her background and education to improve outcomes for patients with chronic diseases. As a federally qualified health center, Charles Drew Health Center receives federal funding to provide health care to vulnerable community residents, many of whom are underinsured or have no insurance.

Her work at the health center spans hypertension, diabetes, asthma, medical adherence and more as she focuses on improving the quality of care and removing barriers to health care for the vulnerable patient population.

Two years ago, Lavelle implemented a self-monitoring blood pressure program to improve hypertension management. Patients were sent home with the equipment to monitor their blood pressure at home between visits to the Charles Drew Health Center. The self-monitored blood pressure program has increased patient hypertension control from 48.9% to 63.7%.

Referring to what she called the “white-coat syndrome,” Lavelle said blood pressure frequently rises during visits to the center due to nervousness. The self-monitoring blood pressure program – results of which are reported regularly between center visits -- gives health professionals a more accurate picture of how well treatment programs are impacting the patient. A text message program gives patients weekly reminders to watch their diet, take their medications and check their blood pressure.

“Patients seeing their blood pressure on a more frequent basis feel more empowered that they have control of their blood pressure,” she said.

The health center has also implemented a diabetes and wellness program, often referred to as the “food pharmacy” program, in collaboration with Whispering Roots of Omaha, which provides food. Patients are taught how to prepare healthy food at the center and provided with healthy food items they can prepare at home using the skills they learned during the center’s classes.

While not traditional “bedside care,” this truly is nursing care, Lavelle said. There are nurses everywhere working on preventative programs.

“Working to provide health care regardless of socio-economic status is very rewarding,” she said. “We get to see positive outcomes. We get to hear people talk about how their quality of life improves as we see their numbers improve.”

As a wife and mother while working full-time as a clinic nurse in a busy practice, Siebels enrolled in Methodist College and earned her master’s degree in nursing in May 2022. Having moved away from more traditional nursing roles to the nursing information technology field, Siebels earned her current title as a clinical informatics specialist.

In her current position she helps staff and providers improve communication and technology with patients, staff and providers and other health care systems. Her work has strengthened and streamlined patient care visits, sharing of patient information, reduced paperwork and increased electronic access.

“Much of my work is helping staff and providers with charting problems. Helping improve and clarify the flow of information improves patient care,” Siebels said.

She pointed to her collaboration with Tami Bardon, a cardiology unit triage nurse. Bardon developed a list of standard questions that a triage nurse would ask to assess the condition of a cardiology patient. Various patient responses to each of those questions are listed in a drop-down menu that follows the question. Bardon developed the phrases used for questions and responses and Siebels then created the electronic form the triage nurse uses to record the patient’s responses. The result is greater uniformity in the information that is being collected from patients during the triage process and passed on to providers and other staff.

“The greatest reward of nursing is the knowledge that you’re helping other people,” Siebels said. “What we’re doing in IT is helping make things more efficient for better outcomes.”

King came to work at CHI Health Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs after earning her nursing degree at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City. With the exception of a brief time away from Mercy in 2018 and 2019, she’s spent most of her 22-year career there.

After starting as a medical-surgical pediatrics unit nurse, she spent 12 years as a diabetes educator before returning to the medical-surgical orthopedics unit. She is a preceptor for that department, helping to train new hires and also works with Creighton University nursing students training at Mercy.

A continual learner, King, although not a chemo certified nurse, has been trained to give chemo treatments. She completed her Bachelor of Science in nursing in January of this year and is currently working towards certification as an orthopedic certified nurse. She’s completed the class work and hours required for the certification and is currently studying for the test, which she hopes to take and earn certification within the next several months.

King also serves as a mentor for Mercy’s 18-month program for all new employees, a program that extends beyond new hires for the nursing units. The program provides topics that are to be covered but allows the mentor and the new hire to decide in what order those topics are covered.

More than two decades into the career she chose in high school, King still finds nursing a rewarding choice.

“Just seeing people start to know how to take care of their conditions and being their support is tremendously rewarding,” she said, “and I really enjoy seeing the nurses I work with become better.”

In addition to her work at Mercy Hospital, King is involved in the community through her service on the All Care Health Center’s Board of Directors. She’s served on the board since 2013 with the exception of one year off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In her role at Methodist Health System, Tran works with victims of elder abuse, sexual abuse, human trafficking, strangulation and domestic abuse. She works with people at their most vulnerable.

“You show up when they are in the most traumatic and scary moments of their lives. What they have experienced can only be described as horrific,” she said. “There’s something to be said for going through this experience with them: You are not alone. I believe I give them control back of their situation.”

Tran is good at what she does, her nominator wrote. “Jen’s compassion, level of communication, knowledge, expertise, and passion make her the ideal advocate for patients and our community. These traits and her infectious personality have left an indelible impression with everyone she’s worked with.”

Tran served as Methodist’s Forensic Nurse Examiner team leader for five years before stepping into her role as a forensic nurse examiner in January. “I’m now part of the team. My children only will be young for so long.”

Following her high school graduation, Tran wanted to attend Creighton and major in criminal justice – a program the university didn’t offer. A Creighton administrator suggested nursing because it offered options and specialties. During an internship at the Omaha Police Department, a homicide lieutenant shared an article about forensic nurse examiners, which led her to pursue an advanced degree at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

In her role as a forensic nurse examiner, Tran works 12-hour on-call shifts from home, which includes weekends and holidays. Calls from Methodist can come at any time.

In her role, she said, Tran visits with abuse victims about what happened and collects forensic evidence. She treats some patients for possible sexually transmitted diseases and provides options for follow-up care. Providing those resources, she said, gives her peace of mind that her patients have opportunities for additional assistance.

“The hardest part of my job is that I don’t see what their future holds. In 98 percent of my cases, I don’t see resolution, if there is some. Being with them in that moment, I realize, is the start of their moving forward.”

“I was scared. I thought I was dying,” Ibarra said. “She was there to hold my hand.”

Ibarra, who works in the Women’s Health Clinic at OneWorld Community Health Centers, said that experience at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center inspired her to pursue nursing. Another experience – when she was ill but her family, living in Utah at the time, was without insurance – inspires her work at OneWorld.

“It goes back to not having access to care,” she said. “That was difficult for my family and I don’t want anyone else to go through that experience.”

Which is why she started her nursing career at OneWorld and hasn’t left.

Some back story. Ibarra and her family were living in Utah without insurance and access to health care. A relative told them about OneWorld in Omaha, which provides affordable, accessible care, and the family moved to Nebraska. Later, Ibarra became ill and she was taken to Children’s by ambulance.

“At this point, I was by myself. My parents weren’t there. I am scared. This lady, whose only job was to be with me, told me to squeeze her hand as hard as I could. I squeezed with both hands.”

Ibarra later wrote about the experience in a college essay, which helped her earn a full scholarship. She could choose her field of study and chose nursing.

At OneWorld, Ibarra first worked in family practice, and recently moved to women’s health. She enjoys the team approach that OneWorld employs to provide care.

“Each day is good with just being able to work as a team. It’s rewarding knowing we did the best we could for our patients each day.”

Ibarra is good at what she does, her nominator wrote: “She devotes her time and attention to ensure that patients receive culturally respectful, high quality health care with special attention to the underserved.”

Her job involves building trust with patients. One patient stands out: A homeless woman who has lost custody of her children. She shared that she hadn’t felt welcome at other places where she sought care.

“We gave her that reassurance that we are here for her and to help – and she can trust us.”

It worked. “She keeps coming back.”

Docken currently works as a nurse in the Bellevue Medical Center Intensive Care Unit where she also serves as a skilled mentor and trainer for new nurses and fills in as a charge nurse for the ICU.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Nebraska Methodist College in 2017. Prior to assuming her current position, she worked as a nurse in nearly every inpatient unit at a Level One Trauma Center. Docken also worked as a nurse in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit and Federal Quarantine Center, one of several medical workers to initially respond to the COVID-19 crisis taking care of some of the first COVID-19 patients who arrived in the U.S.

Her passion for helping others led her to the American Red Cross while working two part-time jobs to support her full-time enrollment in nursing school. As a disaster services relief worker, she helped during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. She volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol’s Emergency Services Operations in conducting inland search and rescue for downed aircraft.

Docken is currently seeking acceptance into a doctorate in nursing practice program at Clarkson to become a Critical Care Medical Nurse Practitioner.

“Constant learning appeals to me, and this would allow me to make an even greater impact on patients’ lives,” she said.

“When you ask any nurse why they chose to go into this profession, they will almost always tell you it is the human connection,” Docken said. “It’s the ability to make an impact on another human’s life, the ability to make a difference – even if it is for just one person. Nursing provides you with the unique opportunity to become a part of someone’s story. You not only get to hear about a person’s unique life journey and all of the amazing things they’ve done in their lifetime … you also get to become a part of that journey.

“You come across people from all walks of life. Whether that person is your patient, their mother, their father, their child, you are entering what is often one of the scariest moments in their lives. You are the face they will remember, the shoulder they will cry on, the person who helps them take their first steps after major surgery they might have wondered if they would survive. You become part of their story. That feeling is unlike anything else in the world.”

And she has cared for many – working in the NICU, in the adult ICU, as a flight nurse, as a lead ER nurse, and in clinical and surgical settings for physicians – not to mention her work in UNMC’s biocontainment unit that treated patients from Africa who contracted Ebola.

“That was probably the pinnacle of my career,” she said. Hospital administrators asked her to join the special unit, which trained in preparation to treat patients. “It was an interesting time.”

So was the trip to a rural community, during her time as a flight nurse, to pick up a boy born at 24 weeks and weighing one pound. The air ambulance landed in an intersection. The newborn’s eyes were closed and his lungs weren’t fully formed. He stopped breathing several times during their return to Omaha. The heartbreak at the time, she recalled, was that the baby’s parents could not come along in the air ambulance. A few days later, she met his parents but then lost contact.

Until 16 years later, when the family asked if their son’s care team could be gathered so they could say thank you. “I have taken care of thousands and thousands of patients – and I usually never know what happened to them.”

Flood said a desire she experienced as a child to help people and a love for science in high school sparked her career choice. She initially worked in Iowa City (Iowa) – where her husband was attending law school – in a NICU. “I loved my work from the get-go.”

A return to Nebraska led to her long-term stay with Nebraska Medicine. Her return came during a time when nurses outnumbered available jobs. She landed a job in the adult NICU instead of on a hospital floor – where nurses typically started their careers. For Flood, her time in ICUs reinforced what she learned in nursing school.

Her nominator wrote that Flood is great with patients. “Betsy is able to speak to patients with confidence about their care and with compassion when things are scary and dire. She will hold your hand and be quiet with you or give you a smile and wink to let you know it will be OK.”

“It was very rewarding to see those babies thrive and do well,” she said. "We called it graduation because some (newborns) were there for a long, long time.”

These days, graduation means participants in the Papillion-La Vista Community Schools’ Health Academy, where she serves as a teaching nurse, have graduated from high school or college, or have become health care professionals.

“When students come back, because they been in a hospital setting, and tell about their experiences – that’s important to me,” she said.

Chick’s introduction to nursing was a poignant one. Her newborn sister spent days in a NICU before dying. “I heard of great things the nurses had done to take care of her and my parents,” she recalled. Chick, then a teenager, knew she wanted to studying nursing.

Working in a NICU, she said, meant she experienced emotional highs and lows. She had to learn how to leave her work – and the emotions that came with it – at the hospital so she could focus on her family when she was at home.

She also gained perspective. “Over time, I realized I would do the best of my ability to take care of my patients while I was there. I couldn’t always control what happened, but I could give the very best care to my patients and their families.”

After eight years in the NICU, Chick became a post-operation nurse. In this role, she helped her young patients learn how to care for themselves after surgery. She also worked with her patients’ parents.

“I did a lot of teaching. I found I truly loved the nursing and teaching aspect of my job.”

After eight years working recovery, Chick became a teacher nurse. The academy is for high school juniors and seniors who seek a career in health care. They spend time in the classroom and in clinical settings.

Chick said she loves every moment, especially watching her students interact with patients at Midlands Hospital. Chick’s nominator wrote: “She is kind, caring and a huge asset to the Nursing Academy students. The students in the past have acknowledged her for being such an important part of their education in nursing.”

Dunn’s deflection comes through his experience as a patient. He suffered a heart attack, underwent back surgery, had a joint replacement and battled skin cancer – and marvels at the care he received.

Dunn has worked as a triage nurse for Methodist Physician Clinic for two and a half years. He started his career in health care as an orderly, then an emergency medical technician on a rescue squad before pursuing training and then working as a registered nurse for nearly eight years.

His drive for a career in health care came through necessitation. “I came across my best friend who was run over by a car. He was lying in the middle of a gravel road in the middle of winter.” Dunn, then a high school junior, picked up his friend, a high school senior, and placed him in a car. “I thought it was the best thing to do.”

It was. His friend spent months in the hospital, underwent multiple surgeries – and survived.

Fast forward after several decades working in health care administration and management, and Dunn couldn’t stay away. At age 65, he “dusted off” his nursing degree and returned to work as a triage nurse in internal medicine. He spends his days talking with people on the telephone about what ails them and directing them about the actions they should take.

Some callers, he said, focus on prescription refills. Others are more serious, for example, a caller experiencing chest pains. Many callers are elderly.

“So many elderly people are isolated. Some of them just need to talk to someone who cares.”

Dunn never fails to follow up, his nominator wrote. “He is empathic, compassionate, and I feel I could tell him anything. He is an excellent communicator, usually when I feel the worst.”

His nominator paid Dunn, age 68, another compliment that caused him to chuckle: “Having never met him, only talk to him over the phone, I have a mental picture of a young Tom Selleck.”

Dunn’s response: “Well, I would just ask her to hold onto that image.”

Bardon earned her nursing diploma from the Jennie Edmundson Nursing School and spent the next 27 years – from 1987 to 2004 – as an emergency room nurse. In addition to her ER work, her resume includes inpatient, case management, eight years at Children’s Hospital and then as a triage nurse in the cardiology clinic. Seven months ago, she transferred to the cardiology office where she said the staff focus is “making changes to improve the care of our patients.”

Bardon said the fact that she is a Council Bluffs native was a tremendous help when she worked in case management helping patients get what they need.

“I’ve developed a lot of connections here, including with the Area on Aging, Iowa Legal Aid, the Veterans Administration and Heartland Family Services,” she said. “Most people are not aware of all the help that is available here when they are in need.” Her goal was and is to make sure patients get the best care, the most resources and that every hurdle has been cleared.

As a cardiology triage nurse, Bardon recognized the need to collect complete and accurate information from cardiology patients to pass along to providers. Although we all ask basically the same questions during the triage process, “You don’t want to forget a key component,” she said.

To that end, Bardon developed a list of questions and phrases used in the triage process. Each question was followed by a “yes” or “no” where appropriate that can be marked by the triage nurse. Other questions were followed by a list of typical patient responses that also can be selected by the triage nurse. Nicole Siebels, an RN who works as a clinical informatics specialist at Jennie Edmundson, created a computerized version of the tool Bardon developed to provide faster and more accurate triage information that can be quickly accessed by other staff and providers.

For Bardon, nursing has become a family thing. Her daughter will graduate from Methodist in May, and her daughter-in-law is currently a nurse with the Methodist system.

“Probably the biggest reward of nursing is seeing a patient come back from a serious illness,” she said, “to be able to succeed in a plan to improve their life and to recognize the positive effect you can have.”