{"id":1317396,"date":"2019-12-24T22:13:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T05:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=992013"},"modified":"2019-12-26T07:58:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T14:58:05","slug":"its-about-taking-care-of-the-patients-for-many-nurses-and-doctors-christmas-is-a-working-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/its-about-taking-care-of-the-patients-for-many-nurses-and-doctors-christmas-is-a-working-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s about taking care of the patients\u2019: For many nurses and doctors, Christmas is a working holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Valley View Emergency Room nurses Carly DeBeque and Kate Kulacz prepare a room for a patient at the hospital.<\/strong>
Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The last time nurse Dawn Sculco worked the intensive care unit over Christmas at Valley View Hospital, a call came to the emergency room asking for her specifically.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t sure if she should say it was she who had answered the phone, since the number was from an outside line.<\/p>\n

But she said yes, and the caller turned out to be a patient she\u2019d helped after a heart attack over Christmas the year before.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018I just wanted to call and see if you were working because I wanted to thank you for giving me another Christmas,\u2019\u201d Sculco remembers.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor everybody that works on Christmas, that\u2019s the reason that they do it,\u201d Sculco said.<\/p>\n

That was in 2013, and Sculco, now the chief nursing officer at Valley View Hospital, will be on call this year while other nurses, doctors, housekeeping staff, chefs and others keep the hospital running and patients safe over the biggest holiday of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI often choose to work Christmas, because most of my colleagues have young children, and I don\u2019t,\u201d said Deb Hume, who has been a nurse for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

Hospital staff members do what they can to make their Christmas shift enjoyable. The people who really don\u2019t want to be in the hospital are the patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients obviously don\u2019t want to be there. Families of patients don\u2019t want to be there,\u201d Hume said.<\/p>\n

The Christmas shift in the Valley View emergency room is typically slower than a normal day.<\/p>\n

There may be ski injuries, ice-related slip and falls, or patients with the flu. This year, a lot of kids are showing up to the hospital with croup, emergency room doctor Brandy Drake said.<\/p>\n

The worst kind of calls are injuries inflicted by family members in domestic disputes, which fortunately doesn\u2019t happen in the Roaring Fork Valley as often as more populous areas, Drake said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always thought of the holidays as a festive time to spend quiet time with family, but unfortunately a lot of families don\u2019t have that dynamic, and it can be a hard time for people,\u201d Drake said. \u201cThat is really hard to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

When any kind of injury happens over Christmas, it can seem worse to those affected due to the time of year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always hard having something like that happen, but on the holiday, it makes it more difficult,\u201d Drake said.<\/p>\n

The hospital staff \u2014 from the administrators and the floor nurses to the housekeepers and chefs \u2014 try to bring an air of festivity for the patients.<\/p>\n

Food trays will be decorated, and patients will receive a special meal for the holiday.<\/p>\n

 \u201cA lot of (the staff) are behind the scenes, and most patients and relatives that come in have no idea what it takes to keep a hospital running over a public holiday, particularly Christmas,\u201d Hume said.<\/p>\n

The dining staff also cooks a holiday feast offered free to employees working that day. Other staff will bring in cookies and sparkling cider to share, according to Hume.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when you\u2019re working Christmas and are away from family, it can seem like a really long day. But in reality, Valley View staff is our second family,\u201d Hume said.<\/p>\n

While working Christmas or any other holiday can be disheartening, nurses, doctors, other hospital staff, along with first responders, fire fighters, dispatchers and others, do it for the same reason they chose their careers in the first place.<\/p>\n

 \u201cI would prefer to be home with my family, but it\u2019s part of what I signed up for as an ER doctor,\u201d Drake said.<\/p>\n

Sculco put it this way: \u201cIt\u2019s not about coming in on Christmas, it\u2019s about taking care of the patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valley View Emergency Room nurses Carly DeBeque and Kate Kulacz prepare a room for a patient at the hospital.Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent The last time nurse Dawn Sculco worked the intensive care unit over Christmas at Valley View Hospital, a call came to the emergency room asking for her specifically. She wasn\u2019t sure if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1317396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 20:25:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1317415,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317396\/revisions\/1317415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}