A quick story. This comes from our 2015 Excellence in Nursing Awards.
When Jackie Cox found out she had Stage 3 colon cancer in January 2011, she made a choice. “I decided that cancer is one word, and it didn’t define me,” says Cox, director of emergency services at Lake Pointe Medical Center [Ed: now she’s director of clinical services for EMCARE]. After her diagnosis and throughout her 10 months of treatment, Cox — a single mother of two boys — missed just one day of work, and that was for surgery to remove the tumor.
She has long known the importance of simply being there. By the time she was 17, Cox had become the caretaker for her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, and her father, who was battling cancer. “So I’ve always included caregivers in the patient’s care,” she says, “and treated them with the same respect I was treating the patient.”
Cox extends the same courtesy to her staff, which has grown from 35 to 115 since she took over the director role six years ago. In that time, she has helped Lake Pointe gain notable clinical certifications and overseen expansion projects that include an urgent-care center and two freestanding, fully functioning emergency departments.
If you know a nurse like Jackie Cox, someone who goes above and beyond, it’s time to nominate him or her for next year’s Excellence in Nursing Awards. The deadline is October 7, and we’ll announce the winners in the March issue of D Magazine. Here is the nomination form.
