Up, Down and Around Our Town

Sometimes it's the little things that stir emotion and memory. In my case this week, it was a combination of both. Holding that little thing that has become my hero prompted a few thoughts. Plus, the fine folks at the Blessing Hospice are celebrating their 25th anniversary. Sadly, scheduling wouldn't allow me to attend, but perhaps it was those blue eyes staring up at me that inspired these thoughts.

Hearken back to 1982. In the healthcare field, that era was truly the ancient of days. Pre-gray hair. Pre-Managed Care. Pre-corporate management. Pre-DRG (that will date some of you) and regarding Hospice Care, pre-Medicare. Yet, through the vision of some tremendously creative people, this healthcare entity became a reality. Talk about a wing and a prayer; I'm not sure we even had a wing when we started.

I still interact with some of those caregivers of those initial patients who allowed us into their lives for their loved one's last chapter. It is not an abnormal week when one will meet me somewhere in town and share the news that perhaps the other parent or grandparent had died. But, probably not surrounded by a combination of caregivers and professionals that made that journey a lot easier.

Mind you, I'm not minimizing. It was hard work. Emotionally draining. Frustrating. Pick your adjective. I share this after compiling so many stories of (mostly cancer) patients who endured surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and some rehabilitation only to be engulfed by the primary diagnosis. Yet, having the privilege of developing that program from Day One, as I have said to many, is probably the most significant career view that I ever experienced. My hope is that St. Peter was watching.

Yet I owe so much of that pride because of those who entrusted me with the responsibility of building that program. While a veteran hospital employee (albeit at the other hospital), it was the late Sue Elmore, one of the VP's at Blessing, who shared with me "you're not really what we're looking for, but there is something compelling about your application. " And, with that in hand, I was given the offer. That's when I first encountered the true class of Blessing Hospital. Looking back, the driver of success was the supporting cast, not the newly minted director.

The Big Five: Larry Swearingen, Jim Waterkotte, Mary Scranton, Brad Billings and Sue Elmore. They were the ones who set the pace and opened the doors. True leadership and even to this day as I now teach Management, I realize how significant having this type of leadership at the top of the organization really meant.

But there were many more. Then Pharmacy Director Greg Behrens who picked clean the brains of every drug company who could assist our patients. The late Danny Downs, who seeminly found every piece of equipment that we were looking for and I'm not sure where he actually found most of it. The hospital nurses: Joyce Alford, Phyllis Dornberger and Isabel Raleigh. For those of you who remember, that was the 5th and 6th Floors of the hospital and these professionals became both friends and colleagues during my tenure. Jan Webb created an entire layer of her volunteer hierarchy just for the hospice patients. Tim Knauff, then of Christ Lutheran Church, was our link to the spiritual world and a special thought goes out to Fr. Garrett Clanton, who had done research and teachings in this area and became such a support to yours truly.

Two unique people, sadly no longer with us. The first? Mary Lou Paulauskis, the Director of Food and Nutrition. She guided us so well in this important field and was sometimes found in the home of the patients assisting with almost any strategy that would get some nourishment into a very sick patient. The 2nd? The late Loretta Eno. The former Director of Nursing had no difficulty sitting down with me and telling me the way that nursing could really work. She was an old-school pro and never missed a chance to teach. Plus, her own background and dedication to her own family is the stuff that books are written from.

I am sure that there was more than one eye raised when our initial Medical Director was named. E. Hayden Keys MD was a widely respected Ob/Gyn who had delivered "about 30% of Quincy" in his day. This most gifted man (who tried to fool you by not sharing many emotions), evolved into a hospice Guardian Angel. He and I were both trained at the Hospice of Marin County in California and, as a result, at any hour of any given day, Dr. Keys was available to these families and patients. It was not unusual to see this man directing traffic in the wee hours of the morning awaiting the arrival of the funeral personnel. And what a sense of humor he had, dry as it was and I couldn't have had a finer professional to partner with. We later became neighbors and most of all, good friends. His replacement, good friend Dr. Phil Wilson, carried on that tradition for many years after Dr. Keys fully retired, even though Dr. Wilson was running his own full-time practice.

It was Hayden Keys, along with Loretta Eno, who coined the phrase that "this is the way medicine is supposed to be practiced. " I miss them both.

But there were key core personnel. The nursing kind. I had the joy of many, but will mention a few here now. Jan Ehrhart, a Quincy native, returned from working in a volunteer hospice in Greeley, Colorado to become our first paid nurse. She took the reigns of this fledgling program (and its rookie director) and validated it within the system. She put the structure to our purpose and while we only had her presence for two-plus years, the legacy that she produced was tremendous. Later, it was her leadership that ultimately brought me the company of Marilyn Miller and Mary Ann Maynor. These two wonderful nurses become close friends and buoyed both the confidence of the program and the patients with their presence, skills and compassion.

But in every organization, there is always one superstar. Maxine Flentje was ours. If you are looking for the combination of a professional nurse, a true Christian, a diagnostician, a protector, a problem-solver and a shoulder to occasionally cry on, then Maxine was your choice. And we built programs with and around her. At the local level and the state level. Plus, when Medicare and JCAHO finally did surface in hospice care, it was Maxine who stacked the policies and procedures to make it happen. Plus, in 1985 when the AIDS crisis first hit, it was this talented young lady who took the bull by the horns and laid out the approach to a disease that none of knew much of anything about. She did the one thing that was so necessary by taking the fear out of this fatal diagnosis. Without Maxine, the early years would have been very thin.

Did I also mention that she became my most trusted colleague and friend?

The baton was passed to Jeri Conboy in 1989 and she remains at the helm today. With flawless delivery, this Social Worker evolved into the face of the Blessing Hospice and the program now serves over 4 communities in addition to the local one. It doesn't seem possible that a quarter century has passed, but it has and for those many families that allowed our presence in their homes at the most stressful time of life, I share my thanks and pride for being able to be there at that time. Not to mention the thousands of dollars that were donated to perpetuate the program into today's world.

I can't imagine my life now without those seven years of leading that charge. It was the greatest learning laboratory that one could ever imagine and the friends that I made along the way sustained me in so many ways, even today. I draw on those lessons learned and someday, I'll share those reflections with my blue-eyed hero. Something tells me that she will enjoy hearing them. It is a time to say thanks and I can't share those words enough to a community (and an organization) that gave and gave to make sure that we never compromised any aspect of care. Testimony to a true team effort.

Post-election next week. I promise. But, till then and as always, I remain....