Blog

Hillcrest NICU nurse begins career where her inspiration started

 

Tristin holds up a photo from 2017    

In 2017, 12-year-old Tristin Weaver stepped inside the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Hillcrest Medical Center for the first time. Even before that moment, she knew she wanted a career caring for babies. The visit was arranged after Tristin’s mother shared her daughter’s interest with Grace Switzer, BSN, RN—then the NICU supervisor and a fellow native of Stigler, a small rural town in Oklahoma.

Today, Tristin is back in that same NICU; but now as a nurse. She joined the Hillcrest... Read More »

Patient donates final painting to Hillcrest Medical Center after receiving care for terminal cancer

Creating art was special to Helen Wormuth. She started with Prismacolor pencil drawings at around 60. Slowly, as arthritis started to take over her hands, she switched to painting with acrylics. The former dancer and nightclub owner’s life had slowed down over the last few decades, and art was therapeutic for her. 

“My mom’s inspiration was always messages from God,” said Wormuth’s daughter, Dan’niel McKnight. “She is a born-again Christian and became a minister later in life. Anything God told her to paint, she did. In 2019, He told her to paint a wave and instructed her to ‘hold... Read More »

Dolly McNulty: Traveling nurse turned hospital founder

Dolly McNulty, a traveling nurse, was on a World War I troop train heading west from New York in 1918 when she read about the flu epidemic in Tulsa. Her curiosity led her to stop in town and attend a meeting to address the outbreak. This decision would alter the course of her life and leave a legacy that is still alive today. 

McNulty decided to stay in Tulsa. She bought Sunnyside Hospital, at 521 N. Boulder Ave., that same year. She added a training school for nurses and re-named it Morningside Hospital and School of Nursing. 

She operated the combined school and hospital... Read More »

What to do if... you have a cooking burn

Accidents in the kitchen happen to the best of us. Whether it’s a splash of hot oil, a spill of boiling water or contact with a hot surface, burns are a common kitchen injury. Dr. Weera Chainakul, medical director of the Alexander Burn Center at Hillcrest Medical Center, shares what to do, and not to do, if you burn yourself while cooking.

 

What to do:

1. Stay calm and assess the burn to determine how severe it is.

First-degree burns affect the outermost layer of the skin causing only redness and mild swelling (like a sunburn) Second-degree burns affect deeper layers... Read More »

How Diabetes Develops and What You Can Do

More than one in 10 Americans is living with diabetes; that’s more than 38 million people. Brooklyn Gokey, RN, CDCES with the Hillcrest Center for Diabetes, breaks down the basics of diabetes and provides tips on what you can do to live a healthy life. If you want one-on-one coaching and diabetes management with the center, call 918-579-3385. 

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other foods we eat into energy to be used by the body. There are two main... Read More »

SILAS program provides comfort, support to couple after losing twin boys

“It’s not about moving on; it’s learning to live in light of what we lost.”  

Daniela and Alan Kline learned they were expecting twins in early 2023. Daniela was a labor and delivery nurse at the Women’s Health Center at Hillcrest Medical Center (HMC) at the time. She was looking forward to bringing her babies into the world at her workplace, where she was familiar with the staff and processes.   

“I loved working here. It was such a special job to bring life into the world,” said Daniela. “I felt known, and I felt like I had purpose.”  

At 15 weeks, Daniela’s... Read More »

Focused care helps family battle cancer, aphasia

Over the past decade, Sabine Barnes has entered many hospitals’ front doors. Most recently, the caregivers at Hillcrest Medical Center (HMC) and the Kaiser Rehabilitation Center have given her and her family hope for a brighter future.

“We have been to many hospitals and very few of them do it as well as HMC,” said Sabine’s daughter Jenny. “Especially when Mom was having difficulty breathing, everyone acted so quickly and efficiently – it was just great!”

Originally from Germany, the 63-year-old immigrated to the United States and settled in Arab, Alabama. A former smoker,... Read More »

Timely lung screening identifies cancer in longtime smoker

For Lee Pointer, 76, shown above with his wife Dianna, smoking was a habit he nurtured for more than 47 years.

“When I was 12 in 1960, my brother had left for the Navy, so it was just my mother and me,” recalled Pointer. “She was a smoker and sometimes left long cigarette butts in the ashtray. One day I took one outside and puffed on it. Later, I hung out with my friends at our ‘clubhouse’ that was out of public view. I smoked there with one of my buddies.”

Pointer said it was a different era in the early 1960s. “Back then, there was no minimum age to purchase cigarettes. I... Read More »