Sydney Nerg stepped up.
NH+C honors select employees each year as part of our Do the Next Right Thing initiative that empowers every individual on staff to help provide the best experience possible for patients, guests, and each other. We're proud to honor Sydney for stepping up as an interim director of her department to make sure things ran smoothly for patients, and for her colleagues.
When the Wound Healing Center director resigned, Sydney took on the center’s administrative tasks to make sure things ran smoothly for patients, and for staff.
Sydney is the center’s Nurse Manager. She was the first nurse hired when the Wound Healing Center opened in March 2021. “I was the one here the longest, and had the most experience,” she says. “I just assumed I was the one to take on more responsibility.”
Working closely with staff, providers and administration, Sydney made sure that patients continued to receive the excellent care the center is known for. She displayed a strong work ethic, organization management, and a very positive attitude.
Sydney led day-to-day operations – giving guidance to clinical staff, managing coding between NH+C’s and Healogics’ separate electronic health records systems, handling personnel needs.
All this between her busy roster of patient appointments. “I love patient care – the patients are the best part of my work,” she says. “But it did stack up.”
This would just be temporary, Sydney thought.
It lasted over 3 months.
“It got long, but the work had to be done,” she says. “The love of my job, the support of other nursing leaders who wanted to help me succeed, and just the pure drive of getting important work done well – that’s what kept me going.”
The center’s nursing staff saw how hard Sydney was working, so they took on extra responsibility too. “That made me cry,” Sydney says. “It’s the nicest thing you could ever hear as a leader: that you showed by example, and motivated your staff to be on that same level.
“Awesome teamwork gets done in the Wound Healing Center,” she adds. “It is by far one of the happiest work environments I’ve had.”
NH+C’s culture is “so positive, and so supportive of each other,” she adds. “People are willing to help you if you ask.”
Especially if you lead by example.