SALTMER CITY – This is a year different from the others for most professionals, but especially for those working in healthcare.
For all the bad things that will be remembered over the past year, if nothing else, 2020 has shown us what real heroes look like there.
Not movie stars, athletes or even influencers on social media. Instead, people who look like Mackenzie Visentin.
“One thing I learned this year is how adaptable and resilient nurses are,” she said.
Visentin is a nursing manager at Alta View Hospital and is proud of how her team and all health professionals handled a year of not really learning in medical school.
“My team chose to have a good attitude through this challenge,” Visentin said.
Sometimes it was a challenge to have a good attitude.
“There were days when we were on our last nerve, very stressed – the melts are very short,” said Breno Rodrigues, a physical therapist at Intermountain Healthcare. “But I think at the end of the day, we as caregivers came together as a group of people who care about other people, and it reminded us why we became healthcare providers.”
Many of them said that the love and support they received from the community helped.
For a year as challenging as it was for those in the medical profession, they also said they learned a lot in 2020.
“One thing I learned this year is how resilient people can be and how sometimes suffering can bring out the best in people,” said Cathie Randle, a home caretaker at Alta View Hospital.
“I think I’m very proud of my colleagues, from our emergency room to our nurses on the floor, everyone,” said Chris Taylor, CT technologist. “We work hard every day to care for our patients who are really sick.”
One thing I learned this year is how resilient people can be and how sometimes can lead the best in people.
–Cathie Randle, Alta View Hospital
However, a new year always brings new hope.
“My wish for next year is to end this pandemic,” said LeAnne Blair, a nursing manager at Riverton Hospital. “To be able to see my friends again.”
“I’m very hopeful that our communities are vaccinated enough to be able to open businesses and be safe with their families again and our lives will just be normal again,” Randle said.
The COVID-19 pandemic response has been politically controversial.
But for as divisive as coronavirus, masks and vaccinations are still, perhaps Jake Elkins has the best wish of all.
He works in childbirth at Alta View Hospital and sees new life coming into this world every day.
“I am very hopeful that we can all get out of this and learn and overcome our challenges in the future,” he said. “My wish for next year would probably be that we will learn how to bring everyone together as a human race and overcome our differences.”
It will be heroic for everyone.
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Alex Cabrero