Today I had the pleasure of interviewing my colleague Mary “Beth” Upham for the quarterly nursing newsletter. Beth and I have worked together in the hemodialysis unit for 5 years, and I have always heard bits and pieces about her thirty eight years as a hemodialysis nurse. She carries a wealth of knowledge and experience, and shared with me stories about how things “used to be”. She is using her knowledge and experience to develop a PD program along with Dr. J Tang, Nephrologist and Donna Durand, Nurse manager. She started in 1978 in Warwick, R. I. working as an RN for a non- profit clinic, Rhode Island Renal, or as she fondly refers to it as “Re-Re”. There were only 3 dialysis clinics in R.I. at the time – the VA, Artificial Kidney Center in East Providence, R.I, and “Re-Re”. Things were very different
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In 2003, the corporate world moved in and Fresenius Medical Care bought out “Re-Re”. For those of you who don’t know, Fresenius Medical Care is a large for-profit company providing dialysis, doing research, marketing dialysis products and running access centers. Obviously, that brought a lot of change to the unit. Changes included a decrease in nurse to patient ratio’s, use of evidenced based practice, and a fresh look at how to treat these complex patients. Beth stayed at Fresenius for eighteen months learning the tricks of the trade and made the decision to bring her expertise to the VA Hemodialysis Unit in 2005. As the hemodialysis unit began to expand from a 3-day per week program to a 6-day per week program Beth was instrumental in collaborating with Donna Durand, Nurse Manager in implementing evidence based practice and exemplary quality indicator standards. The program continues to grow and in alignment with the mission, vision and values of the organization chose to develop a PD
In 2003, the corporate world moved in and Fresenius Medical Care bought out “Re-Re”. For those of you who don’t know, Fresenius Medical Care is a large for-profit company providing dialysis, doing research, marketing dialysis products and running access centers. Obviously, that brought a lot of change to the unit. Changes included a decrease in nurse to patient ratio’s, use of evidenced based practice, and a fresh look at how to treat these complex patients. Beth stayed at Fresenius for eighteen months learning the tricks of the trade and made the decision to bring her expertise to the VA Hemodialysis Unit in 2005. As the hemodialysis unit began to expand from a 3-day per week program to a 6-day per week program Beth was instrumental in collaborating with Donna Durand, Nurse Manager in implementing evidence based practice and exemplary quality indicator standards. The program continues to grow and in alignment with the mission, vision and values of the organization chose to develop a PD