Terry Meler-Flinn, RN
From 10-Year-Old Observer to Director of perioperative services: A 39-Year Journey in Nursing.
story and photo by James Coburn, Staff Writer
Terry Meler-Flinn, RN, knew as a 10-year-old that she wanted to become a nurse. She is in her 39th year of service at SSM Health Bone & Joint Hospital at St. Anthony. Her sister was born with hip dysplasia and as a 3-year-old was a patient there.
Terry’s parents allowed her to stay with her sister overnight. She learned how the staff cared for her sister by observing and listening to the staff. The surgeon explained things to her as well as he could to a child.
“That intrigued me at the time. He showed me the X-rays. I really felt involved with her care, though I was just her sister being a family member at her side,” Terry said. “So ever since then nursing was my goal. I wanted to be a nurse and I wanted to work at Bone & Joint.”
The culture at Bone & Joint continues to keep her going. Terry serves as director of perioperative services.
“Orthopedics is my first love,” she said.
Perioperative services take a multidisciplinary approach to ensure that patients are assessed properly upon arrival. Patients must be well enough to have surgery. A patient-centered team follows the patients throughout their pre-admission, procedure, recovery, and post-recovery.
“My staff here, I think is very committed to nursing care. They’re always in a learning mode and they always seem to really put their patients first,” Terry said. “They come to work with a caring attitude, and it really shows with how they interact with their patients.”
Bone and Joint nurses are highly skilled individuals in their understanding of bone disease as experts in their field. Bone and Joint is co-managed by physicians and hospital leadership with engagement by all the care providers. Physicians at SSM Health Bone & Joint Hospital at St. Anthony partner with the nursing staff to ensure all the processes meet the best needs of the patients.
The nurses are very dedicated, engaged, making sure that things that don’t work are worked on until those processes are changed and improved. There’s a lot of tenure at that facility, Terry said.
Terry began her career as a circulator and a scrub nurse at Bone & Joint after earning her nursing degree at Oklahoma City Community College. Throughout the years, Terry developed her skills in acute care and rehabilitation. She would work in the ER on weekends. She said the medical staff were great orthopedic mentors.
“I was able to grow and elevate into the role that I’m in today,” Terry said. “And I feel like it’s helped me to maintain quality. I just wanted to make sure we were still No. 1.”
Many remarkable advances in technology evolved to impact her as a nurse. The manual phase of forming the bone has been replaced by computerized assistance.
When she arrived at Bone & Joint there was a surgeon who did not have to use cutting jigs to form the joint replacements.
“He was so good, he sat there and eye-balled it,” she said. “The prosthesis fit perfect. Throughout the years the instrumentations became more complex. There are more pieces before getting to that final implant that it has evolved that now we have robotics.”
Bone & Joint was one of the first hospitals in the United States to use a MAKOplasty robotic arm system to perform a hip or knee replacement.
Adaptation was always exciting, she said. Learning opens new avenues for patient recovery.
“I think as a nurse we try to nourish other people and give them care. There’s been times when I’ve seen patients and their families return. They give the nurses a pat on the back or a thank you,” Terry said.
She wishes more people in the world today would have more compassion and empathy.
“I think you learn to look at the world a little differently. I think my career has helped me to kind of see the whole person and not just gearing in on one aspect of a person. We’re all human and we all need feedback, love, and we need care and support. I think looking at the whole picture has kind of given me a new aspect on life.”
She loves dogs and all creatures, large and small. Her home borders the countryside, giving her opportunities to feed foxes, raccoons, possums, and different critters on her land.
“We have a lot of racoons. They bring their babies up there. They’re cute little things,” she said.
