Oklahoma's Nursing Times is published throughout the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metro areas. With more than 42,000 weekly readers in print and more than 70,000 online each month, Oklahoma's Nursing Times is the largest weekly health care publication in Oklahoma. If you have a news idea, press release, announcements or personnel changes that affect the industry - call Priya Jenkins, editor at 405-631-5100 or email news@okcnursingtimes.com. If you are recruiting nurses call Annette Deckard in Oklahoma City or Melanie Mitchell in Tulsa, classified advertising at 405-631-5100. If you wish to advertise your retail location or product call Char Posey, retail advertising at 405-631-5100. You can also reach either by email advertising@okcnursingtimes.com

Hospice protects the quality of life for terminally-ill patients, says Robin Beckley, director of clinical services at Preferred Hospice in Edmond. Photo by James Coburn

Laughing with Elizabeth By Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal, RN

Each week we visit with health care professionals throughout Oklahoma. If you would like us to visit your facility, please email Priya Jenkins at: news@okcnursingtimes.com

Thanks to a $25,000 grant from the Sisters of Mercy, some 175 uninsured and underinsured Oklahoma women will get mammograms and needed diagnostic procedures this year.

Audra Jenkins, MS, CCLS, (left) is the director of the Child Life Department in the Children's Hospital at OU Medical Center. She also works with pediatric diabetes patients and sees child-life referrals from Everett and Presbyterian Towers. Kim Russell, BS, CCLS, (right) is responsible for in-patient and out-patient surgery, as well as the pre-surgical admission teaching program. Photo by Elissa Crocker

When then 77-year-old Ches Herndon began having one of the telltale signs of colorectal cancer, he didn’t say anything to anyone. Not to his wife of 55 years and not to his son-in-law, a gastroenterologist in Wichita, Kansas.

Hebert A. Nishikawa, RN, BSN, MS, PhD, enjoys collecting oriental artifacts, traveling, and gardening. Hebert is an Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing. His influence to become a registered nurse came from his older sister and mentor Frances. Hebert has been in nursing practice for 43 years. He recalls in the 1960’s when open heart surgery was in its infancy, caring for a post operative 14-year-old boy with seven heart defects who demonstrated the courage and resilience of the human spirit as being his best memory of being a registered nurse. As early as the age of 12, Hebert was attracted to the nursing profession as an occupation during a time when men in nursing was not cool. With the encouragement of his sister and a school teacher, he kept his dreams and planned his high school curriculum to meet the requirements for admission into the limited number of schools accepting male nursing students in the middle fifties. It was with the support of his family and peers that he was able to achieve such a rewarding career.

More than 350 high school students explored health care careers today at Mercy. The popular Mercy Health Career Exploration Day, now in its third year, gave area students a chance to learn about a wide variety of job opportunities.

21st Century Home Health Agency Director of Quality Assurance Patrice Garcia doesn’t believe on resting on one’s laurels. Healthcare workers should always persevere to reach their next goal, she says. Photo by James Coburn