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Lodi nurse earns national award
Posted: Friday, May 11 2007
From the Stockton Record, May 9, 2007
Wanda Ketcherside, a nurse at Lodi Memorial Hospital, is congratulated by co-workers Sony Fua, right, and Schyerle Beal as she is announced as the first recipient of a national award for outstanding service by the DAISY Foundation at her hospital on Tuesday morning.
By Jeff Hood
Lodi Bureau Chief
LODI - A brief ceremony Tuesday to honor a Lodi Memorial Hospital nurse for her dedication included tears of joy by the recipient and somber reflection on another nurse killed in a motorcycle accident a week earlier.
Wanda Ketcherside, 72, was presented with a certificate, pins and a gift by the Daisy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that recognizes dedicated nurses across the country. The foundation was created in 2000 by a Sonoma couple after their son's death.
"I'm surprised. I'm honored. I guess I'll just cry," Ketcherside said upon receiving the award, the first Daisy Foundation award given to a Lodi Memorial nurse.
In return, the hospital donated $500 to the foundation in the memory of Tom Patterson, an intensive care nurse who died a week earlier after the motorcycle he was riding home from work to Galt crashed into the side of a turning cattle truck.
"He worked my unit, I hired him, and he was a close friend," Ketcherside said of Patterson, 57. "He was a great nurse."
Ketcherside, a registered nurse for 26 years at Lodi Memorial, oversees a residency program for new nurses that began in January 2006. She said only one of the 43 nurses to go through the 18-week program has decided not to remain at the hospital.
"We give them a lot of support, and they feel like they're part of the hospital," Ketcherside said.
Ketcherside also still cares for patients.
Tuesday's award had not only Ketcherside in tears, but also several of her co-workers.
"You don't find anyone better than her," said Debbie Sellers, a nurse recruiter who dabbed at her eyes after Ketcherside was honored. "She's a wonderful lady and exactly what this hospital represents."
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