We would like to nominate the team that helped with the intake of, and compassionate care delivery provided to our Ukrainian patients earlier this year. It was an incredible opportunity to provide care on a global level from our St. Jude campus.

I first heard we were going to receive several families from the unstable war zone from our Clinical Operations partners. This team, Adam Risinger, Ellie Reece, and Rebecca Bush, immediately started to communicate the plan to receive several families from Ukraine. We, the Outpatient manager team (Tammy Teems, Delaine Johnson, Julie Jones) were not exactly sure when they would arrive, how many families and patients would arrive, or what the status of their condition was. We collaborated with interpreter services, social work, food services, and global outreach to form a loose plan ready to deploy in about 48 hours. Since we did not know the medical states of the patients after a 24-hour travel time, we prepared to have a group of clinic nurses (Trisha Gray, Brittney Walker, Emily Nichols, Alexis Kelly), APPs (Carly Meredith and Layna Michalik) and MD (Jessica Gartrell) to receive them in clinic. Then we collaborated with Lane McCurrach, house supervisor, and Lindsey Reap, Inpatient manager, to create a plan for a direct admit or emergency response team should one of the patients have an emergent need. This is where we unofficially termed our efforts, Operation Sunflower at the suggestion of Lindsey after learning the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.

We received word late in the week that our patients would arrive on Monday at some point in time depending on their exit from Poland, flight times, and entry to the United States. Through our social work contact, Erika Sirrine, and our clinical operations partners, we were able to arrange last-minute communications to be prepared for whatever condition the patients arrived in. Patti Gust and her team worked to devise a plan to expedite the registration and general consent process. LaWanda Payne and Michael Vetro worked to prepare warm meat and potato meals as comfort food for when they arrived. Kelly Jennemann offered translation assistance both in person and on video interpreters for medical translation while Mia Carlton and John Jernigan stepped in to translate and accompany the patients with non-medical translation. In addition to the above-mentioned, many volunteers from ALSAC and global accompanied these families and assisted their travel and arrival.

The families arrived in the evening hours and were exhausted but glad to finally make their destination. Thanks to our nursing partners in Poland Zuzanna Cepowska (head nurse), Katarzyna Matczak (Kasia), Paulina Kurkowska, and Katarzyna Bieniek, these patients were stable and in good spirits upon their arrival. Once they completed their video interpreter-guided registration, they were escorted to one clinic area where they were seen by the above nurses, APPs, and MD for housing clearance, and no emergency or inpatient care was required. Food services sent their food to housing as they were all ready to go to sleep. Caron Byrd and Security collaborated to take the families from the hospital straight to housing as soon as possible. While it created some stress and anxiety to prepare for their arrival, the visit was effective and uneventful.

The second group we received a week later was less stressful and efficient as we learned from our previous visit. We once again prepared for a clinic clearance visit with RNs (Alexis Kelly, Trisha Gray, Aundrea Ellis, Megan Key) and APPs (Sarah Aldridge, Saman Hashmi) with the House Supervisors team on standby for a direct admission. But much like the previous week’s families, our Polish partners sent stable patients excited to arrive at St. Jude. Our second visit was more efficient and smoother for the patients.

I cannot express enough gratitude to all who contributed to these visits. No task great or small was unappreciated. It was a unique experience that reinforced my belief that nurses are extraordinary beings with a spiritual calling to selflessly care for others.