JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — You might say for Carlie Bernhardt, it was baptism by fire. "I graduated in May with a children's hospital in Pittsburgh. I worked there for a few months and then came back home." That's right, she entered the nursing profession right in the middle of a pandemic. For Carlie, UPMC in Jamestown is home. "It was kind of crazy because we graduated, we didn't do any clinicals towards the end it was all online. So going from your computer to right in the middle of everything it was kind of crazy "
Only life and job experience could have prepared her for the emotional rollercoaster she was jumping on. "Leaving my patients at the end of the day, working the covid-19 unit, you have patients for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month. Your little elderly ladies, you become so close, like family and they talk to you, they get really personal with you and leaving them at the end of the day and not knowing if they're going to be here when you come back the next day is probably the worst thing."
While she was just getting her feet wet, many of her colleagues have been at it for decades, but even they were entering new territory. Mary Beth Peterson has been at the hospital for almost 42 years. She has seen a lot, and she saw COVID as an opportunity to really expand their outreach, and help the community as a whole. "Typically our industries are very busy at this time of year, but they weren't they were shutting down. So we thought how can we help? So we offered to help with the testing clinic, thinking I will do this for a couple of months and get back to what we normally do. I think this is week 56 for us."
Sandra Hawkins has been a nurse for almost 30 years and comes from a medical family. She agrees that this has been a year like no other, one that taught them alot about how much they could mean individually and collectively to their community, but also the magnitude of what they get from their jobs. "I get love from my patients i get frustration from my patient i get to see my patients get better i get to see their family interactions and it so all of that together is what makes being a nurse worth it."
Emelia Harley, Vice President for Patient Services at UPMC summed up the value of nurses at every hospital very well. "They are the lifeblood of the hospital, they're what makes this hospital run."