When Jerry Hughes, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) valet attendant, takes the car keys of Vanderbilt patients, he leaves a piece of his kind spirit with them as they venture into the hospital to face their day.

Those attending Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) one-hour programs next week to celebrate staff and faculty — Celebrate the Difference YOU Make Every Day! — will be entered for drawings to win concert and athletic event tickets in addition to hearing inspiring messages from VUMC leadership and patients.

Small and seemingly inconsequential interactions with patients can sometimes stick in a caregiver’s memory.

Taylor Brumbelow has a gift for quickly putting people at ease.

Laura Jarosemich, MSN, R.N., is always teaching. It’s the role she had as a nurse educator, as an instructor at Nashville State Community College and now as a nurse at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital (VPH), both to patients and fellow nurses.

Terry McHollin checks the coffee cups along with the trash cans in patients’ rooms. Serving coffee isn’t part of her job description as an environmental service tech, but if someone needs a fresh pour she will stop what she’s doing, wash her hands then head for the coffee pot — and still stay on schedule.

“Today I will be happier than a bird with a french fry” reads a sign next to the door as you exit Stacy Jones’ office on the 8th floor of Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital (VUAH). As a social worker on the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at Vanderbilt, the sign’s wording fits Jones’ personality.