Hometown Helpers: Charge nurse helps new nurses and cares for patients
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REXBURG — EastIdahoNews.com is introducing you to Hometown Helpers in our community. We want to spotlight a firefighter, police officer, city worker, and others who quietly keep our cities and counties running.
This week, we are featuring Aaron Caldwell, a quality team leader or a charge nurse for Madison Memorial Hospital.
“As a charge nurse, I’m on a lot of teams, so I am on the code team. So if a code comes into the ER, I respond to the ER so we see a lot of traumatic injuries coming in,” he explained. “I am also on the behavioral health code white team so if they have someone that gets out of control behavioral-wise, they will call for a code white and we respond to that as well so I see a wide variety.”
He’s been working at the hospital for over 12 years.
“The job is taking care of patients and I love taking care of people,” Caldwell said. “It’s always different, there’s nothing ever the same. You could work one day after the other and every day would be different.”
As a charge nurse, Caldwell also oversees and manages other nurses, including newly employed nurses.
“I love helping the new nurses get their feet wet and helping those new nurses get where they need to be to get on their own so they don’t need that help anymore,” he said.
He explained nurses have to deal with a lot of stress and emotions, which can take a powerful toll on them, like when patients they’ve been taking care of, pass away. Caldwell tries to keep it positive for new nurses that begin working in the field. It’s not easy but there are ways to mentally get through the challenges.
“The thing I always tell them is, yes, we may have not got the outcome we wanted but I know in my head that we did everything we could and that’s how we get through it. I think back and think, ‘Is there anything we could have done differently?’ and a lot of times there isn’t. We did everything we could physically possible to have a better outcome but sometimes it doesn’t go the way we want,” he said.
Caldwell said he enjoys meeting new people and getting to know patients.
“My favorite part of the job is, I get to go around and meet all the patients and so I get a more variety of what’s going on and know what’s going on with all the patients on the floor but I get to take the time to talk with them,” he said.
He’s proud to work at Madison Memorial Hospital.
“I just think Madison Memorial Hospital does a lot more than what a lot of people think we do. The amount of surgeries we do here…we have some world-renowned doctors that do surgeries here,” he said.
Caldwell shows every day that he’s a Hometown Helper, by caring for patients and nurses.
If you know a Hometown Helper that we should feature, email andrea.olson@eastidahonews.com.