Kaweah Health Celebrates Top Nurses During National Nurses Week

As part of Kaweah Health’s nurses week celebration (May 6-12), the Visalia healthcare organization honored its top nurses. Award winners included:

Nurses Week is celebrated May 6-12 each year to commemorate the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. Known as the ‘Lady with the Lamp” making rounds on wounded soldiers at night she laid the foundation for nursing and became a beacon of hope. Florence referred to her work as ‘her must’, for many nurses, their work is a calling, their purpose and their joy; a blessed and honorable profession.

Nurses are characterized first as caregivers. They also are healthcare professionals guided by a standardized body of knowledge, a code of ethics and developmental theory. They are governed, licensed and regulated by an elected governing body. They have professional autonomy and decision making and have committed themselves to service and the relief of suffering.

Nurses are universal caregivers and respected the world over. There are 4 million Registered Nurses, 724,500 Licensed Vocational Nurses and 93, 410 Licensed Psychiatric Technicians in the United States; in 2021 for the 20th consecutive year Americans rated nurses’ honesty and ethical standards at the top of all professions ratings. Nurses are responsible fully for 90% of healthcare and grass root catalysts of health development worldwide.

2020 was hallmarked as the Year of the Nurse in honor of Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday anniversary, no one could have predicted how true that would be, yet the year of the nurse continues. In 2022, the theme was to celebrate Nurses Week is Rooted in Strength as the profession works to rebuild, reconnect and redefine the delivery of healthcare. Nurses are still here, working together to build an even stronger health care system for the community.

Of the more than 1,600 nurses at Kaweah Health, the following nurses were recognized with the following awards:

Advancing New Knowledge and Innovation-Yu Li Chen, RN 4South

Advancing Practice- Cody Ericson, RN Advanced Practice Team

Service to Society- Janet Furtado, RN 4South

Excellence in Nursing Leadership- Andrea Hodgkins, RN Nurse Manager 3North

Clinical Nurse of the Year- Critical Care NPC- Esmeralda Ayon Beleche, RN 2North

Clinical Nurse of the Year Medical Surgical NPC- Cristina Custodio, RN 3South

Clinical Nurse of the Year MCH- Carol Christenson, RN NICU

Clinical Nurse of the Year Post-Acute & Out-Patient NPC- Dahlia Sanchez, RN, Subacute

Clinical Licensed Vocational Nurse of the Year- Critical Care NPC- Anissa Rivera, LVN Float Pool

Clinical Licensed Vocational Nurse of the Year Medical Surgical NPC- Victoria Mandujano, LVN Broderick Pavilion

Clinical Licensed Vocational Nurse of the Year MCH- Arianna Myrick, LVN OB Postpartum

Clinical Licensed Vocational Nurse of the Year Post-Acute & Out-Patient NPC- Alma Cruse, LVN Exeter RHC Pediatrics

Medical Staff RNs of the Year:

Candice Hatfield, RN Emergency Department

Edward Escobar, RN OR

Monica Reyes, RN Pediatrics

GME Program RNs of the Year:

Vida Halsey, RN Cardiac Cath Lab awarded by Anesthesiology

Patrick Ramirez, RN Emergency Department awarded by Emergency Medicine

Jessica Haas RN 3West awarded by Family Medicine

Marissa Torres, RN Acute Psych awarded by Psychiatry

Sandra Gonzalez, RN 3North awarded by Surgery

John Seffing, RN Rapid Response Nurse awarded by Transitional Year