Bre has been a cornerstone of the Monticello Cancer Center since it opened 13 years ago. In my personal opinion, she hasn’t received the honors and gratitude she deserved for her dedication to the patients and the department. Multiple supervisors and peers have relied on Bre for her wisdom, attentiveness to the department as a whole rather than a singular focus on her role, and her willingness to share her knowledge. This resilience is a testament to her reliability, team consciousness, and the high level of excellence in her thoughts and care. She thinks of the interconnectedness between each part of the team and draws them together, promoting connectedness and collaboration instead of siloed thinking with underperforming results. When the department was without a formal leader, she was heavily relied upon as an informal leader and she served our community by shouldering the heavy weight of the department many times to help it through significant transitions, often covering multiple roles at once to make sure no patient fell through the cracks. I have appreciated her willingness to take and provide feedback. Her feedback has been foundational to my growth as a leader and she takes feedback with grace and dignity, incorporating it immediately into her work. She is quick to show deep appreciation and notice the hard work of others, and not just with brief statements of gratitude, but with deep and honest reflections of thanks that stay with the recipient forever.

I am nominating Bre because I am constantly in awe of her. She inspires her team to care for one another as much as they care for their patients. She knows that how we care for one another is a direct reflection of the care that we can provide for our patients. She challenges each of us to strive for the highest level of care possible. She engages in activities within the department because she is passionate about doing her part to make a difference and encourages her peers to do the same. She has been instrumental in developing the navigator role to help remove barriers to care for patients. She redesigned the nurse teach program so that patients received quality information on their first visits. She has recognized gaps in care and helped to close them. She has passionately advocated for programs that focus on the mental and spiritual well-being of patients, not just their physical well-being. She speaks up with concerns and questions assumptions in thinking. Her door is literally always open for people to seek advice or think through problems. At one point we joked that her office looked like a revolving door because people were always coming to her. I suspect this desire to check in with her had more to do with her grounding presence, her deep listening, and her compassion for her peers. She was a safe place for them to discuss ideas, to be accepted for who they are, to struggle to grow, to learn, and to just be. Her office was a haven from the stress and her listening was healing for so many during a really hard time.

Bre is solution-oriented. She doesn’t just come to me, her supervisor, with a problem asking for it to be fixed. She shares insight, creates innovative strategies, and her eyes light up as we collaboratively re-envision new solutions. Our department has been through a lot, and through the turmoil, the short staffing, the dramatic shifts in processes, etc. Bre has persevered with resilience, offered hope and support to others, receptively accepted and grew from feedback, and brought the entire team into a whole new place mentally and departmentally. Our department is now a place of solace and support for patients and staff alike. A place where everyone’s light is encouraged to shine and reflect positive authenticity upon the team. Bre once said that after our major department, it feels like she had a new job without ever having to leave her old one. It truly has transformed, and she has been pivotable in the growth of the department – helping us shift from static to growth mindsets, negativity to a strong focus on positive intent, and improving our thinking to improve our overall results as a team. Even nurses from Coborn’s Cancer Center, referring sites, patients, and our partnering centers all know Bre by name and can share many stories about how great it is to work with her.

For her 13 years in the Monticello Cancer Center, I don’t think that Bre has gotten the appreciation, recognition, and gratitude for all that she has done for the department. I also think she is at a point in her life where there are a lot of things that aren’t positively reinforcing how amazing she is, and I want to send a strong message to her that she is worthy of being seen and honored.