A team effort

Published 5:00 am Sunday, August 29, 2021

Cullman Regional ED nurse CJ McCluskey stands in what will be the new ED lobby area. Construction on the ED expansion project, which also includes additional treatment rooms, is scheduled to be completed in 2022.

Chasity “CJ” McCluskey saw up close and personal what nurses do for their patients and patient families when her younger brother was born six weeks premature. McCluskey, 15 at the time and already certain she wanted to be a nurse, said that experience “sealed the deal” for her. “I watched those nurses take such incredible care of him in a community hospital much like Cullman Regional,” she said.

McCluskey has been at Cullman Regional Medical Center since 2007. She earned her nursing degree from Wallace College in Selma and moved to Cullman shortly after that. She’s been an ER nurse since 2009 and says of her coworkers, “Across the board it takes every single one of us to get through 12 hours. I love them and I am forever thankful to be part of such a wonderful team. I pray for us and our patients daily.”

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The past year and a half has been challenging for healthcare workers, and McCluskey said the hardest part is seeing to her own mental health. “I have always tried to ‘turn work off’ when I clock out, but in reality it is not that easy,” she said. “We worry. We go over the day in our heads and wonder what could be done differently, especially as we are facing this virus.”

To cope, she enjoys time with her husband and their two children, enjoying being outdoors and having quiet weekends at home. It helps, too, that she loves working at CMRC and living in Cullman.

“I love Cullman and the “small town” living. I love this hospital and our community,” said McCluskey.

She said her favorite part of her job has always been seeing her patients get better and go home, and now, amid a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 200 Cullman residents, that joy is even greater and expressed by the staff in “Code Joy” celebrations. “We line the halls and cheer for covid patients as they leave the hospital to go home,” said McCluskey. “That is always such a happy time for all of us!”

It’s that care and dedication to her patients that makes McCluskey a healthcare hero. “I have always believed it is our job to be the patient advocate. It is our job to make sure the patient is taken care of as a whole,” she said.