by James Coburn – staff writer
Giulia Frattinger, RN, speaks with a calm and collected voice.
Her demeanor serves patient care well as the emergency room and outpatient services manager at Mercy Hospital Logan County, located in Guthrie.
Frattinger has served at Mercy Hospital Logan County for nine years, two of those years dedicated to her present role.
She couldn’t find work in the Houston area to be near her family after graduating from college in Wisconsin. So, one day she was driving back to Wisconsin and came upon Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City. She saw the cross on top of the hospital. Frattinger had an extra resume in her car, so she pulled over and went to the front desk. The rest is history.
“It’s the culture of this facility, the fact that it is so small is that we have the capability of meeting every patient’s needs,” Frattinger said. “They’re not just a number. And the biggest thing is that we really work well as a team. We don’t have, ‘I’m just an ER nurse, I’m a radiologist or I’m in registration.’ We all pitch in and work together as a team and it’s more of a family.” (story continues below)
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She originally was a med/surg nurse working at a Wisconsin hospital. The hospital had opened a telepad at the hospital with a flight crew. Something sparked that made her want to be a flight nurse, but she was told she needed experience in the emergency room or ICU. Frattinger, at the time, didn’t think she would fit well in an emergency room. But she challenged herself with the contingency to cross-train from med/surg into the ER. Frattinger slowly worked in the ER until working full-time there.
She stepped up knowing the Guthrie ER department needed a leader. She already loved being an ER nurse with admiration for the staff. The nurses are very smart and can work independently or together.
“Here in Logan County, it’s a little different. In Oklahoma City they have teams. If somebody has a stroke, the stroke team comes. If somebody has a heart attack there’s a team that comes,” she said. “Here, they know it all. These nurses are great.”
Frattinger’s role as manager is to make sure nurses have the resources needed at any given moment. Her job is to provide them the tools empowering them to be even more successful in taking care of the community.
It’s been said that emergency room nurses feed from adrenaline. There’s some truth to that, Frattinger said. Once a nurse experiences the challenge of ER nursing, it’s hard to leave that role as a nurse, she continued.
“The thing about ER nurses is that they can be put into a stressful situation, but still maintain a calm composure, because ultimately you have to be able to take care of patients. You have to be able to calm them. And, if you are anxious and excited then you are going to make your patient anxious and excited. So, an ER nurse really needs to find that middle ground where they can act in a stressful situation, but also maintain composure,” she explained.
She recommends that a nurse fresh out of school should work in other areas of nursing before considering an emergency room career. Neither Frattinger nor most ER nurses would be as successful without the knowledge of other nursing backgrounds. She pointed out having one ER nurse who worked in a clinic, another was in labor and delivery.
“They bring all of those talents and experiences to the ER so that we have a knowledgeable person in every area,” she said. “So, I think it’s important to understand what happens outside of the ER — what happens after — so we can educate patients to know what to expect being here with this emergency. We want to make sure you are on the right path. These are the things you can expect when fully educating a patient — it’s helpful to have other background.”
Frattinger can see a lot of people come back to the hospital because Guthrie is a small community. She recalls a patient she cared for on the floor. A few years later, she recognized him in the emergency room. He saw Frattinger and turned to the doctor and said, “Oh my gosh, it’s my favorite nurse.”
She asked him how he remembered her. The man didn’t remember her name, but had remembered her kindness, her race, and how she made him feel.
“I confided in him that back then, I was a baby nurse. I didn’t even know,” she said of a moment that touched her life.
Her patient said, “Yes, but you showed me so much respect that I felt comfortable.”
Frattinger said it was great to see the success he had in walking again since she had seen him last.
“Here you get to see those success stories of your patients,” she said.
For more information about Mercy Hospital Logan County visit: https://www.mercy.net.
