"My Work-Life at UK" - Jim Ryder
The UK Hospital takes care of the people of Kentucky and the Med Center Physical Plant maintenance team takes care of the hospital. That means we make sure there is light so the professionals can see, we make sure the nurse call works so the nurses can respond, we make sure that the patients have ice in their drinks. We help keep the patients warm and the very stressed staff cool. We dread 3 a.m. phone calls that mean a tired trip in to repair some essential equipment. We keep the building dry and painted and standing. We fix things.
In the hospital the patients and nurses and doctors depend on us. We know that our building and equipment are important to the well being and safety of very sick people. “We are working on it” is too slow; the only satisfactory response is “it’s fixed." Many of us work odd shifts or very long hours, some of us don’t know when quitting time is. Holidays mean little: if it’s a white Christmas, we report.
________________________ provides its own profound rewards." ________________________ |
Yet working in our hospital provides its own profound rewards. We are a very small but essential part of a much wider team of loving, caring and extraordinarily skilled caregivers who are some of the best medical professionals in this state. It is a privilege to serve them and contribute to their success. In addition and more wondrously, we get to see a continual procession of human drama and emotion. |
On a daily basis we see before us what it means for human beings to feel stomach churning fear, the blackest of sorrows, and the ecstasy of answered prayers. And we have the privilege of knowing the doctors and nurses who have answered those prayers, and occasionally we can feel their exaltation in the miracles they perform.
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