Crystal Wise
Glenn McBride
Glenn McBride Medical City Alliance
Glenn McBride wanted to become a doctor at first, taking an interest in psychology after losing a family member to suicide. He went to Texas Woman’s University for his pre-med degree and got a job as a medical assistant — but eventually decided being a doctor wasn’t quite his calling.
Still, he always enjoyed the nurse-patient relationship, so he went back to school to get a degree in nursing and has stuck with it since. Two years into the job, McBride says he’s right where he needs to be.
“I found that nursing is the craziest of them all,” McBride says. “[But] I’ve found my calling. It’s perfect for me.”
Now a medical-surgical nurse at Medical City Alliance, McBride is witnessing the pandemic firsthand, working directly with patients in the COVID-19 unit.
“It’s been pretty hard on us nurses,” he says. “But we’ve really come together as a team because we’ve had to completely isolate from our families and friends, so we’ve kind of developed our own family at work.”
In spite of the challenges brought on by COVID-19, McBride says his compassion for others is what continues to drive him every day.
“One thing you have to remind yourself is these patients are having a way harder time than we are,” he says. “As nurses, we’ve really had to step up and be their friend, their family, and their advocate.”
Crystal Wise
Olu Abiara
Olu Abiara Medical City Fort Worth
Olu Abiara says she’s always wanted to take care of people, even from a young age. She spent the first five years of her life in the U.S. before moving to Nigeria, moved back to the U.S. in her 20s, and finally settled in Texas about 12 years ago.
For the past seven years, she’s been at Medical City Fort Worth, where she’s currently a neuro/cardiac nurse working on the PCU (Progressive Care Unit) floor. She treats patients recovering from stroke and dealing with an altered mental status or cardiac-related problems.
“I believe that it’s my life mission — to take care of people,” Abiara says. “When you see that change, that impact you make, it gives me joy.”
Abiara says her job hasn’t changed much since the onset of the pandemic — while COVID-19 may be the illness making headlines, that hasn’t stopped the other illnesses that continue to impact patients.
As for being named a Top Nurse — Abiara is quick to turn the spotlight on her peers, crediting fellow nurses for their hard work that often goes unnoticed.
“I thank God for the opportunity to be recognized — not everyone that’s doing the job is recognized,” she says. “That is the truth.”
Crystal Wise
Jeanette Uribe
Jeanette Uribe Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth
Jeanette Uribe grew up in the Medical District, going to school at Trimble Tech, just a stone’s throw away from her future place of employment, Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth. Her time spent getting involved with her school’s medical program and volunteering at the hospital sparked her interest in becoming a nurse. Today, she works at Harris Methodist’s oncology unit, treating adult cancer patients — a post she’s held since 2012.
But no one could have predicted how much her job would change in 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Uribe’s had to be extra cautious to ensure the virus doesn’t reach cancer patients whose immune systems are already compromised.
“We have to protect them,” she says. “We’re already their advocate, but we have to go the extra step for protection. Make sure the patients are getting screened before they come to the floor, and make sure we [health care workers] don’t come across anybody who’s positive.”
For Uribe, caring for cancer patients has helped put things in perspective, especially when it comes to the little things in life that the average person takes for granted. Something as simple as grabbing a Chick-fil-A sandwich or a Dunkin’ doughnut for a patient — which she’s done before — can go a long way.
“I try to brighten my patient’s day up,” Uribe says. “I try to make them smile; I try to make them laugh. Just seeing them smile drives me.”
Crystal Wise
Eduardo Flores
Eduardo Flores Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center
Eduardo Flores, who goes by Eddie, was in high school when a family member became ill with cancer. He’d been fortunate up to that point, not having any family members who had died or been sick.
“I went with her to a couple of her radiation treatments,” Flores says. “Serendipitously, this kind of leads up to me becoming a nurse. I saw how, even on her worst days, the oncology nurses would brighten her day. They really made a dramatic effect on her at the end of her life.”
Those nurses worked in the intensive care unit, which, as fate would have it, is where Flores finds himself at the All Saints Medical Center — he previously spent eight years at UT Southwestern in Dallas. As an ICU nurse, Flores takes care of one to two critically ill patients at a time. Like those who cared for his family member, Flores makes it a point to personalize his care.
“Involving the family is one of the main parts of my personal nursing practice,” Flores says. “Their family member could be literally on death’s door, but you just ask them, ‘Can I get you anything? Can I have somebody get you anything?’ That small thing can ease tensions with families, and it lets them know that you’re taking care of everyone, not just the person in bed.”
Crystal Wise
Grace White
Grace White My Health My Resources of Tarrant County
There’s a photo that exists of a 3-year-old Grace White, dressed in a nurse outfit and pretending to care for her sister. White, now an advanced public health nurse at My Health My Resources of Tarrant County (MHMR), says she’s always been fascinated by not just medicine but the idea of helping others.
“What I really wanted to do was try to help people and make a difference,” she says. “In thinking of careers that can do that, nursing was always one I was drawn to.”
For White, health care is more than just physical. She’s spent the past 29 years working for MHMR, a medical center that specializes in services for mental health, substance abuse, homelessness, and other areas. She’s a big believer in caring for the “whole person” — that means being there for patients emotionally and mentally alongside giving them physical treatment.
“Most people, what they want is somebody that’s going to listen to them — listen with empathy and try to help them get through whatever their health concerns are,” White says. “Each person’s not a box or a checklist; each person’s an individual. You have to show them that you’re really listening with empathy, and you’re advocating for them.”
Crystal Wise
Toni Lewis
Toni Lewis West Magnolia Plastic Surgery Center
Growing up on a farm in Olive Branch, Illinois, Toni Lewis was always taking care of everyone, whether it be her four other siblings (she was the oldest) or the chickens, cows, and other animals she was always around.
Her family moved to Fort Worth in 1977, and today she’s a CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist) at West Magnolia Plastic Surgery Center.
Lewis also has a knack for business, having helped open at least 12 surgery centers including the Lemmon Avenue Surgery Center in Dallas. She also works for Gulfstream Health, a health care system that aims to solve the issue of out-of-network medical centers and provide treatment at a lower cost. Among her latest projects is a Gulfstream surgical center on the UNTHSC campus on Haskell Street.
“I bring a very different perspective to the construction process because I have that clinical background,” Lewis says. “Just because you can draw it, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be built. How does it really work in the clinical environment? How does it function to bring the best level of care?”
While she loves the business side of medicine, Lewis says she feels more at home in the operating room, and she still gives anesthesia at least two or three days a week.
“I would be lost if someone told me I could only do business; I would be so sad if they told me I could only do construction,” Lewis says. “I really don’t play golf or tennis. I love patient care. I love taking care of people.”
Crystal Wise
Misty Miller
Misty Miller Civitas Senior Living
Not all nurses wear scrubs every day to work. While there are those who administer medications and insert IVs, there are also those in administrative capacities whose main charge is to ensure the safety and well-being of both patients and nurses. And, in the middle of a pandemic, the importance of these roles couldn’t be more apparent.
“Obviously I loved being at the bedside and taking care of people,” Misty Miller, who is the chief operating officer at Civitas Senior Living, says. “The nursing profession on a whole is extremely rewarding. What I love about being in the position that I’m in is I get to impact change on a larger of a scale.
“I really like data and quality metrics. So, I can look at different quality scores throughout all of our organizations and really start to build some robust quality improvement plans to improve and drive quality.”
With her mother being a private duty caregiver, Miller knew at a young age that nursing is what she wanted to do, and before entering the corporate role, Miller was a bedside nurse for many years.
“My mom worked for a family, providing care for a mother,” Miller says. “I thought it was really neat to see how my mom wasn’t related to these people, but she really became part of their family. And, so, I think that’s what inspired me to become a nurse.”
Crystal Wise
Maribel Rodriguez
Maribel Rodriguez Cook Children’s Medical Center
Affecting thousands of newborns each year, a cleft lip or palate is one of the most common birth defects, and it can lead to a number of medical problems which can require a team of doctors to remedy. In a highly specialized field, a nurse who works with cleft children can become a firmly established figure in a child’s life, as they can sometimes provide care for the child well into their teen years. And this happens to be right in Maribel Rodriguez’s wheelhouse.
A nurse with the cleft, craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgery team at Cook Children’s, Rodriguez was previously a stay-at-home mom.
“When it came time, I wanted to do something to connect with people and help people, and nursing just called to me,” Rodriguez says.
Starting out in the adult ICU, Rodriguez eventually transitioned to the pediatric population at Cook Children’s, where she now helps children and can assist mothers like herself.
“It’s nice to work with families so closely,” Rodriguez says. “It’s stressful when your baby’s sick, and parents are trusting you with the most precious thing they have, their baby. But it’s such a special thing to see the children improve and start to flourish. I just love it.”
Crystal Wise
Kelsey McClellan
Kelsey McClellan Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center
Unlike more specialized nurses, Kelsey McClellan, who works for the progressive care unit at All Saints Medical Center, sees it all. The progressive care unit, where some patients go after being treated in the ICU, doesn’t discriminate based on illness, ailment, or injury.
“We see a lot of post open-heart surgeries,” McClellan says. “We see a wide variety of patients: kidney patients, lung patients, everything.”
McClellan works hard to be as thorough as possible on the medical side, while being as compassionate as possible on the bedside manner side.
“I think sometimes as nurses, we can kind of get in the rut as only seeing it as a job,” McClellan says. “But I really seek to get to know my patients, their family members, and to answer all their questions.
“I have learned to always seek to understand, because if someone is upset, there’s always a reason why. Why are you feeling that way? Why do you have these questions? I feel like that is so important as a nurse to communicate well with the family and to communicate well with the patients, because I think communication can alone dissolve some of the stress and the anxiety of being in the hospital.”
Crystal Wise
Kathleen Dahle
Kathleen Dahle John Peter Smith Health Network
