Credo Award and Five Pillar Leader Award winners were announced at last week’s Winter Clinical Enterprise Leadership Assembly at Langford Auditorium.
Mavis Schorn, Ph.D., CNM, assistant dean for Academics in the School of Nursing, received the Five Pillar Leader Award. The award was established to recognize exceptional leaders who consistently follow VUMC’s balanced, “five-pillar” management approach, and who, in accordance with the VUMC Credo, consistently demonstrate the Medical Center’s standards for service and all-around professionalism.
From Schorn’s nomination:
“Mavis came to Vanderbilt in 2002 and quickly began to make her mark. By 2006 she had become program director for the school’s Nurse-Midwifery program. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report rated the program third in the nation, the highest it has ever been rated and a full nine places higher than the prior rating. She has a knack for managing; she listens more than she speaks, leads by example and never asks anything of those whom she leads that she is not willing to do herself.”
Schorn is also one of four VUMC clinicians who won patient satisfaction 2012 Top Performer Awards, given to individuals and teams who achieved 2011 satisfaction scores in the 100th percentile nationally within their clinical discipline or service category (based on reporting by Vanderbilt’s patient satisfaction survey vendor).
The Credo Award was established to recognize staff and faculty who consistently demonstrate the Medical Center’s standards for service and all-around professionalism.
Credo Awards went to Heather Barksdale, a case manager, and Claudette Fergus, until recently a consultant with the Department of Quality and Patient Safety and now a senior consultant with the Department of Patient Experience and Service Excellence.
Barksdale’s nomination featured a testimonial from a Vanderbilt employee whose mother died of cancer earlier this year:
“Heather was always, always there for us, making my mother and my family her top priority. At one point, blood clots were killing my mother, and we had exhausted every blood thinner there was except for an extremely expensive thinner that was not covered by our insurance. Heather wrote a compelling letter to the insurance company arguing to have the meds covered, and she tracked down all the doctors who needed to sign it.
“She was a rock that my mother leaned on to help her discuss issues like do not resuscitate orders. Heather showed up immediately when my mother was admitted to the ED on the day she died. The ED doctors were hurrying down a path of very aggressive treatment. Heather knew we had struggled as a family with the do not resuscitate concept and decision. She talked to the doctors, talked to us, to the nurses, and tried to figure out how best to help us move forward. I have not been able to thank her properly, as I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it until now. I hope this nomination will show my thanks in a way that a simple card just wouldn’t do.”
From Claudette Fergus’ nomination:
“Claudette, quite simply, is one of the main reasons so many more of our faculty and staff perform hand hygiene, as she has served as one of the leaders on the institutional hand hygiene program for more than three years. She has never wavered in her belief that putting the patient first should drive the program’s decisions. She also understands that hard-wiring what many call a ‘simple’ behavior can be extremely challenging and involves systems, workflow, personality and behavioral factors that must be deftly managed in order to achieve success. She has actively partnered with a wide array of people at all levels of institutional leadership to advance the program. The time and dedication Claudette has spent on the program is a clear reason for its success. We know that through her hard work and dedication she has helped to hardwire not only improved hand hygiene compliance but a safe culture throughout VUMC.”
The Credo Award and Five Pillar Leader Award are conferred every three months. To nominate staff or faculty for either award, please complete a nomination form on the elevate website.
