Stepping up to the plate to hit a homerun for others
Despite tight timeline, caregiver helps knock a big project out of the park
Sometimes everything in a ballgame hinges on someone stepping up to the plate to hit a homerun for the team. One person’s focus and talent can make all the difference in a successful outcome for everyone.
While it wasn’t a ballgame, caregiver Sheila Sandiford, program manager for Continuing Medical Education at PeaceHealth St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Bellingham, Washington, knocked a big project out of the park to help a colleague.
Andrea Zikakis, a chaplain at PeaceHealth St. Joseph, was developing a training program to support awareness and resilience around compassion fatigue for emergency room caregivers; first piloted with nurses, then rolling out to providers.
While Zikakis knew CME accreditation required a different process from what she was familiar with, she hadn’t anticipated the long lead time needed for accreditation.
Sandiford listened intently as Zikakis shared her dilemma, knowing how this would impact physicians if the project wasn’t completed on time. With kindness and empathy, Sandiford agreed to take the project on and told Zikakis, “I don’t know if I can pull this off, but I will do everything in my ability to do so!” And she did! She stepped up to the plate like a pro and knocked the project out in record time with competency and efficiency.
Zikakis is grateful for her colleague’s commitment and compassion and for the unsung heroes on the team—the CME committee of eight physicians and one pharmacist—who volunteered their time to review and approve CME credit for the project in record time.
Sandiford’s supervisor Penny Roberts shares she is “not a bit surprised that Sheila stepped in to help. She is a one-person department, and I’m continually amazed at the volume and complexity of her work—all of it to serve our caregivers and physicians.”
PeaceHealth St. Joseph is accredited by the Washington State Medical Association to provide Category 1 continuing medical education for physicians. In Washington state, physicians need 200 hours of CME every 4 years for relicensure. PeaceHealth St. Joseph provides more than 400 hours of Category 1 CME annually, with an average annual attendance of 6,000 physicians and other caregivers.
