TOLEDO, Ohio — Throughout the pandemic, we have been thanking our health care workers on the frontlines. But just imagine starting your career in a hospital during this time.
In a year that's taken so much from so many of us, nursing staff with Mercy Health wanted to give a little something to nurses just starting their careers.
"We would show up on the unit with flowers, with a poem that we wrote and their pin. Then their manager would be there and their whole entire team," Mercy Health Chief Nursing Officer Katy Stringfellow said.
The "pop-up pinnings" took the nurses by complete surprise. About 50 of these special ceremonies were conducted over the past few months, including one for registered nurse Chelsea Greene.
"It was amazing to have the unit actually do it and have everybody watch and participate. And the fact that I did my school clinicals here, that made it even a bit more special," Greene said.
Greene works in the neurointensive care unit and experienced the response to COVID-19 as a student nurse. She graduated in May, a bit heartbroken that there would be no ceremony, and hit the ground running.
"It's been a lot because you're learning the new ways of how things are run. Even the senior nurses are learning the new ways of doing things," she said.
But Greene said she's happy to be doing a job that she loves; helping others.
Her support staff is excited to be able to give her and dozens of other nurses beginning a new journey, a warm welcome.
"This was actually the best part of my job. It was very rewarding to see the smiles on their faces. Many of them cried. Their teammates cheered them, clapped. We had physicians getting involved, so it was really neat," Stringfellow said.
MORE ON WTOL: