Elizabeth Gillam, RN, remembers the first time she came to Mercy Hospital St. Louis.
“From the minute I came through the front door 10 years ago, I felt something different here. The people here were kind and welcoming,” she said.
Gillam is now executive director of nursing, medical-surgical service line.
Mercy’s core values, which Gillam says align with hers, appealed to her. “I love working at an institution where the values that we have posted on our website and in our hallways are really the words that guide what we do every day,” she said. Gillam is happy that Mercy puts “our patients first and foremost.”
“I love working in an institution like that,” she said.
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Mercy, one of the nation’s 25 largest healthcare systems, operates more than 40 acute care, managed and specialty hospitals and urgent care locations, imaging centers and pharmacies, and 900 physician practices and outpatient facilities in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. It also operates clinics, outpatient services and outreach ministries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
A foundation of dignity
The health care system lists five values on its website. Dignity, the first of these five values, is the foundation of the others, the website notes.
Mercy’s values “really boil down to the fact that we want to make sure that we’re treating everybody here — patients, visitors, family members and co-workers — with dignity,” Gillam said. “That’s something that speaks to who I am as a person. It’s part of why I’ve continued to choose to serve at this hospital.”
Karyl James, regional chief nursing officer and community vice president of nursing in Oklahoma, agrees.
“What makes Mercy attractive is our culture — and our mission and our values,” she said. “I work for Mercy because it aligns with my value system of how I want to take care of people.
“I think that feeling you get when you walk into a Mercy facility, whether a clinic or a hospital, is really that caring compassion our founder, Catherine McAuley, brought forward and what the Mercy health care entity is really built upon,” James added.
“I get the pleasure of being able to help our co-workers see how they bring to life the healing ministry of Jesus, which is embedded within our mission statement. It’s also why I stay at Mercy. I honestly believe that if you come to a Mercy entity, you’re going to get the best care we have to offer.”
Nursing at Mercy: Anything you want it to be
Jacob Kliethermes, registered nurse and executive director of nursing at Mercy Hospital Lincoln, is another longtime employee who is happy he works for Mercy.
Kliethermes started nursing school in 2003 and took a job with Mercy two years later.
“I never left Mercy,” he said.
Kliethermes applauds the flexibility nurses find at Mercy. “Nursing for us here can be honestly anything that you want it to be,” he said.
For example, nurses may start in critical care but find that doesn’t work for them. This could be for a variety of reasons, whether it’s the hours or sadness from continually dealing with seriously ill patients, Kliethermes explained.
Fortunately, Mercy makes it easy for nurses to pivot from one type of care to another, he said.
“The best reason to come here as a new grad or as an experienced nurse is it opens the door for what is going to fit you best,” Kliethermes noted.
Other benefits Mercy offers nurses include loan forgiveness for up to $20,000 in nursing school debt, scholarships only available to Mercy nurses, tuition reimbursement, a fellowship program and an LPN-to-RN program.
For more information on the programs, visit careers.mercy.net.
