In honor of our devoted and loyal nurses who serve selflessly in our facilities, we continue our Honoring Our Nurses series with Clinical Nurse Educator Nancy Haker and ER Nurse Nathanael Haggard.
While we are featuring a small group in these weekly articles for the entire month of May, we are celebrating all our hardworking and committed nurses.
Nancy Haker, RN, Clinical Nurse Educator
I was born and raised in Northern California. My original career plan was to become a lawyer. However, a divorce caused a change in gears and led me to a nursing career instead. It was a career change that I feel was destined to happen as I love being a nurse.
I became a nurse primarily because of my mother’s influence and example as a nurse, as was her best friend, Rosemary. Nursing seems to be a tradition in my family as we now have three generations of nurses as two of my children are currently working on their nursing degrees.
In 2004 I graduated as an LVN after two years in school and subsequently worked at Enloe Hospital in Chico, California until I completed my RN program in 2007. I then moved back to my hometown of Redding and worked in the orthopedics and critical care departments at Mercy Hospital. In 2013, I took advantage of an opportunity to manage a rural clinic in Shingletown California before becoming a travel nurse in 2015.
My first visit to Bethel was as an ER travel nurse in 2016. I returned in July of 2019 and became a permanent employee in November of the same year. I am still here and love what I do and the people I work with. I returned to Bethel because of the wonderful people I worked with, and stayed because of them as well.
My tenure as an ER nurse ended in December of 2021 when I became YKHC’s Clinical Nurse Educator. The support and guidance provided by the leadership team and my peers have been instrumental in facilitating my transition to and development as a nurse educator. My role also helps me to cultivate a love for teaching and provides me with opportunities to travel and learn from others who inspire me to continuously grow.
Learning is an endless process and it excites me to be two classes away from attaining my BSN degree, in addition to concurrently completing courses in my MSN program. As an educator, I am in awe of the volume of information out there for consumption and that every day we should strive to add to our skills/knowledge set so we can better help others.
Nursing has given me a home, a place where I can continue to grow and learn and serve. I have learned that I have abundance of compassion for others and that I am capable of way more than I could fathom. As challenging as it can be on some days, I wouldn’t trade being a nurse for any career in the world!
Nathanael Haggard, RN, BSN, Emergency Room
A seasonal tourism job in Juneau during the summer of 2019 made me realize that I didn’t like the long-term trajectory of a career in the tourism industry. My mother-in-law works as a nurse and it seemed that pursuing a nursing career would be a good option for me, as well based on interests and life goals.
A previous degree facilitated my entrance into an accelerated BSN program that lasted for 1.5 years. I graduated in May 2021. YKHC offered me my first job out of nursing school.
Generally speaking, my life is better on every metric by choosing to work as a nurse. Specifically, it allows me to provide for my family, creates a lifestyle of lifelong learning and keeps my long-term goal of working in the US Foreign Service on the forefront.
I would like to think I’ve had a positive impact within the community, a gauge that only community members can attest to. Given my limited experience of under two years as a nurse, I’m truly the least qualified to field questions on nursing careers. However, aspiring nurses are welcome to reach out to me as I am willing to answer any questions they may have.