STEPHANIE ROLLINS

Although she knew she had chosen a good profession, Stephanie Rollins, RN, had doubts during her first three years in nursing. But working as a traveling nurse in Denver and Columbia, S.C. helped her grow into the job.

"When you're a traveler, you're just thrown into a new environment and have to work things out as you go. It forced me to become flexible, which is a good trait for a nurse to have," she said.

As she trained and encouraged other nurses and heard positive feedback from patients, Rollins saw how to make a difference in people's lives.

"I love taking care of people — being able to anticipate needs, alleviate their anxieties and reassure them," Rollins said. "I can pour my heart out to people, not just through the hands-on contact of meeting their physical needs but by connecting on different levels."

Kim Smith, who works with Rollins in the cardiovascular step-down unit at Athens Regional Medical Center, witnessed Rollins make those connections with a patient who was technically dead from stab wounds when he arrived at the hospital.

After surgery, he eventually was placed in Rollins' unit during a slow and painful recovery. Blind, spastic from a brain injury, and unable to feed himself, walk or speak much English, "the man was often depressed and agitated," Smith said.

For four months Rollins ate lunch with the patient, teaching him to eat finger foods and then to use adaptive utensils. She spoke with him in her limited Spanish, brought him CDs and sang with him. She taught him how to walk again with a special walker.

"You have to set goals for them firmly but nicely, and you always encourage them," Rollins said.

The patient, who is now in El Salvador with his family, is doing much better and is walking to church. "I understand he often asks about Stephanie," Smith said.

Rollins, 28, has found a passion for the challenge of cardiac nursing.

"I'm so glad I became a nurse," she said. "I had doubts at first, but then it clicked. You just have to find the area that is your fit."

— Laura Raines