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The ability to provide personalized care is essential to Joy Burke-Hopkins, RN, a 10-year employee on the Orthopedics Unit. “It’s important to me professionally,” she says, “and patients tell me how important it is has been to them.”

And while that verbal feedback is meaningful, the actual results are particularly rewarding. Joy recently cared for and provided support to a patient who required leg amputation. Although a sobering outcome, the work of Joy and her colleagues enabled him to resume daily activities, and he has since returned to the unit to show his tremendous progress.

Working on a busy unit with patients who, particularly post-surgically, have many care needs, can be difficult and stressful. Yet Joy says, “I don’t sweat the small stuff and I don’t worry about what I don’t have.” Having a close relationship with colleagues also helps. “I love my co-workers,” she says. “We’re like a family. We draw strength from each other, particularly from the longer-service employees who provide a great support system” to the rest of the staff.

Having volunteered at another Connecticut hospital, and worked as a clinical technician at still another, Joy is pleased with her choice to come to Saint Raphael’s. “It’s a big hospital, but not too big. We translate the hospital’s values into all that we do – treating all people equally and providing the best care possible.”

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