HealthLinks Upstate July/August 2019

48 | www.UpstatePhysiciansSC.com | www.HealthLinksUpstate.com QUANDRA HORTON, LPN Quandra Horton fell in love with nursing 11 years ago, when her son was undergoing treatment for tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect. She was living in Missouri at the time, and her son had to be air transported to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “He received excellent care there,” she re- membered. “Those nurses were all so compe- tent and cared for him with so much compassion that it inspired me to pursue nursing.” She was serving in the Army at the time, and two years later was ac- cepted to the local practical nursing program. She began her career in long-term care. “I fell in love with the geriatric population,” she said. She then moved on to occupational health, pediatrics and telehealth nursing with the Department of Veterans Affairs. She is currently enrolled at Greenville Technical College, furthering her education in nursing in the associate degree program. Her ultimate goal is to be a nursing educator. “Go after your dream and explore all the options that the field of nurs- ing has to offer,” she concluded. “You never know where you will end up.” APRIL HAMPTON, RN, NHA, CRCFA April Hampton started her career path to nurs- ing at a young age, so it is safe to say she always knew she would be a nurse. When she was 18, she was working in dietary services in an assisted living facility, and it was then that she knew that nursing for the elderly population was her destiny. “I feel that nursing is the gift that God instilled in my heart,” she said. Now she is the director of nursing at RoseCrest of Lutheran Homes of South Carolina. “My focus is educating the staff on quality of care with performance improvement projects. In collaboration with health care systems, we need to ensure a safe transition from the hospital to short-term rehab then to long-term care, assisted living or home health,” she said. “It is important to implement systems and interventions as appropriate to care for those with a diagnosis such as COPD, congestive heart failure or cerebrovascular acci- dent, along with those with the need for surgical and orthopedic aftercare.” She believes wholeheartedly in management equipping the frontline staff with the means to meet the needs of patients in the acute-care setting, sub-acute setting and home health setting. “We all must collaborate in an effort to provide good quality care,” she concluded. ZEPHANY ANDREWS, BA, MSNED, RN Now an assistant professor and academic program chair as team leader for medical sur- gical classes at Greenville Technical College, Zephany Andrews said that if you would have asked her what she was going to be when she “grew up,” she would have told you a teacher or broadcast journalist. “Nursing was not really on my mind when I was younger,” she said. Growing up in a small town in Mississippi, she said she had a drive to succeed in whatever she set her mind to. She decided to major in journalism as an undergraduate at Alcorn State University. Right after college, she married, started a family and spent the next 15 years raising her three sons. As soon as she was able to pursue a career, she decided to take nursing classes at Greenville Technical College. “Of course, when I took my first class in nursing, I knew right away that I wanted to become a nurse, and my hunger for becoming a nursing professor took root.” She graduated from Greenville Technical College in 2005. “Since graduating, I have had the privilege of working in various lev- els of care in nursing. I have worked as a bedside nurse in acute care, critical care, long-term acute care and long-term care,” she said. Now she is a professor of nursing. “I believe that teachers and nurses are the best that can be offered to any community. And guess what? I am a nurse and a teacher,” she concluded. T H E P U L S E O N UPSTATE NURSES HealthLinks Upstate wants to recognize nurses as the backbone of our medical community and thank them for all their efforts! ELIZABETH MADRID, BSN, RN, CPN It is probably fitting for Elizabeth Madrid to be working as a nurse in pediatrics at Prisma Health with the Greenville Hospital System. She grew up in a large family and always loved taking care of small children. “My mom became a nurse when I was teenager, and I knew then that was a field I was interested in as well,” she said. “I love pediatrics because I not only get to take care of children, but I also get to take care of the parents and siblings. When a child is sick, it affects the whole family.” Madrid is bilingual in English and Spanish. She has made it her mis- sion to serve members of the Spanish community by helping to im- prove their quality of care. She spent time in Peru as a volunteer, where she was able to make a difference to the underserved in that area. She admitted that nursing can be challenging but that when your heart is in it, you will find that nursing is “the most rewarding job in the world,” she said.