Awards honor excellence in service
The latest Credo Award and Five Pillar Leader Award winners were announced at Tuesday’s Clinical Enterprise Leadership Assembly at Langford Auditorium.
Kim Nielsen
Diana Phillips
Saralyn Williams, M.D.
The Credo Award is given to staff and faculty who exemplify the Medical Center's standards for service and all-around professionalism.
Credo Awards went to Kim Nielsen, program coordinator in the Family Resource Center at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt; Diana Phillips, senior executive secretary at the Center for Professional Health; and Saralyn Williams, M.D., associate professor of Clinical Medicine, Medicine and Emergency Medicine.
From Nielsen’s nomination:
“Each year we host A Time for Remembering for families to attend a rememberance ceremony for the child or children they have lost. In her role, Kim has always taken ownership for this special event to be the one that provides an opportunity for families to be comfortable in remembering their child. Kim always goes above and beyond in her work, and her dedication and thoughtful consideration is what makes this event successful.
“Kim is so thoughtful and professional in all her dealings with staff as well as families. She has a gift of being able to communicate with families who have lost a child and convey her respect and compassion for their loss. We are lucky to have her at Vanderbilt.”
From Phillips’ nomination:
“Diana is the person behind all the projects taking place in (the Center for Professional Health) who makes sure all goes right. But when it is time to shine, Diana takes the back seat, letting her team get the credit. Her regard for people shines through in all of her words and actions. She sincerely thinks about the people who report to her and the physicians who depend on her.”
“She is a foundation on which we all depend to provide us the information we need, organize us around a mission and follows through on our ideas to see them into a form that can be communicated to all. And, she does this always with a smile and twinkle in her eye.”
From Williams’ nomination:
“It was not until I rotated with her as a third-year resident that the full picture came together. Over the course of that month, Dr. Williams personally sat down with the three residents of the rotation for two hours every single day and taught us, without notes, every single step of the toxicological emergenices, from pharmacodynamics and kinetics, to symptoms and toxidromes, to diagnosis and management. Her infectious excitement and curiosity and unparalleled excellence as a true clinician came together to make Dr. Williams a prominent role model for many of the residents, myself included.”
“We all love working shifts in the Emergency Department with her because it is impossible to see a patient alongside her and not learn something valuable; she always has a few ‘clinical pearls’ up her sleeve and makes time for teaching points. You cannot help but want to become a better doctor around her.”
Freddie Easley, assistant director for Facilities and Operations, received the Five Pillar Leader Award, which is given to staff and faculty who exemplify Medical Center leadership standards.
From Easley’s nomination:
Freddie Easley
“It seems like Freddie doesn’t really report to just one supervisor; there are hundreds (maybe thousands) who take the cleaning of their office, lab or break area very personally. Freddie always seems available to talk to a ‘customer’ about their cleaning issues and he has a special talent for resolving these issues in a manner that meets the customer’s needs and improves the quality of cleaning, yet does not ever compromise the positive regard for his employees.”
“Freddie supports his entire staff in a number of special ways. He learns about any deaths or illnesses in employees’ families and offers his support. He constantly seeks out issues associated with why employees might be tardy or missing work, and offers his support to help resolve these issues before they become performance matters.”
“Over the past several years, it has been almost an annual event where Freddie is asked to take responsibility for ‘just one more building.’ He seems to always create a budget with the idea of improving efficiency. There are occasions, however, when Freddie wonders, while smiling, whether architects might design buildings differently if they had to clean them!”