Below, you’ll find a story that you may have recently seen in a community Facebook group. We decided to interview one of the Caregivers who received a shoutout in the post for the great care she provided in LGH Emergency Department when she exhibited our CARE Behaviors of Compassionate Communication and Every Moment. Keep reading to meet Loureen and learn about how she approaches care!
Can you tell us a bit about your role at Centra and how long you’ve been part of the organization?
I just recently started at Centra in December 2025. I work in the LGH Emergency Department, and am new to Lynchburg in general, I moved here in August from Canada.
What did this particular patient interaction mean to you personally?
I remember this experience starting with the triage nurse coming to give me a bit of a backstory on the patient and had mentioned that she was, “super-sweet but started off very shy and just needed a moment to warm up to staff.” I love interacting with kids, but it breaks my heart having sick kids as a nurse because they don’t always know what’s happening and are scared to be in a hospital around so many strangers who are poking and prodding them.
I just feel like kids shouldn’t get sick, ever. Because of that, I do my best to make sure that those sick kiddos feel safe around me and trust me to take care of them. So, with the prior knowledge of her shyness, I started off standing by the door and poking my head in and out until she started laughing and then went in to introduce myself to her and her mom.
What influences the way you approach your work each day?
I love what I do as a nurse, and I approach each day with the knowledge that I am receiving people on the most painful or frustrating days of their lives. I’m pretty sure that most people, if given a choice, would much rather not be in the hospital for any given reason.
Every day that I’m not the one in the hospital bed is a good day for me, so I go into my shifts hoping to be a little ray of light during a pretty dark time. I love that quote “it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile,” and I believe that happiness is a choice. I’m not saying that I never get annoyed or frustrated, but I do work to keep my work problems at work, my home problems at home, and the problems I might experience with patient “A” out of the room of patient “B.”
What does delivering a positive patient experience mean to you?
Delivering a positive patient experience is important to me. I was a patient when I had a long stay in a hospital back home for just under a month, and I can remember how isolating that feeling was. Even with friends and family visiting every day, it was still like a jail cell. Through all of that, I can still remember the positive interactions I had with my ambassadors, nursing assistants, nurses, doctors and a lot of the staff in the hospital. I do not think I was always the most patient of patients, especially when I was in pain, but I always had the kindest nursing staff that saw me through being short or emotional, and in the end, they helped me out of my pain. You may not know how impactful your words and action are to someone.
How do you build trust with patients and families, especially during stressful situations?
I try to build trust with my patients by introducing myself and my profession. I ask them to tell me about what brought them into the ED and a bit of their backstory to find a commonality between us. I do my best to advocate for my patients and explain why certain expectations might not be met in those moments and try to find alternative solutions with them for their cases.
What would you want patients or community members to know about the nurses, providers and teams who work behind the scenes at the emergency department?
I want to give the team at the LGH ED a huge should out because from the beginning, they have been some of the most welcoming and supportive folks to me that I have ever come across as a new hire. Everyone that I have met has been warm and friendly. They are so hardworking, and I am grateful to be a part of this team who is so eager to teach and guide new staff.
I would like the community to remember that everybody working in healthcare is still human and we often fall short of expectations, to remember that everyone’s experience is different and that the team does their best to help and advocate for each of their patients even when it may not always feel that way.
Ultimately, I think any nurse that was tending to that family that day would have received a shoutout in that Facebook post because I work with such great people! I am truly so honored and humbled to be recognized.
---
Is there a Centra team member who exemplifies one of our four CARE behaviors? Nominate them to be featured in the newsletter by clicking here! [insert nomination form link HERE.
