Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Millie Fincke 1926-2017

2017; Elsevier BV; Volume: 43; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jen.2017.09.013

1527-2966

Karen Wiley,

Emergency and Acute Care Studies

Millie Fincke was appointed head nurse of the emergency room at Allegheny General the day she graduated from nursing school and would eventually become the Hospital’s Vice President. She began gathering emergency nurses in 1968 for dinners, paid for out of her hospital budget, and would bring together countless numbers of people in her lifetime, to make enormous contributions to the education and professionalism of emergency nurses. When she put together an emergency nursing conference in Pennsylvania, Anita Dorr, ENA’s first leader, heard about it and went. They began to work together. Judy Kelleher was doing the same in California. All three connected when they met at Anita’s first conference in Buffalo, NY, and Millie soon found herself working in Anita’s basement, and then her own, sending out dues bills for 5 dollars. She would become one of the key people in the early days of the “Emergency Department Nurses Association” (later, the Emergency Nurses Association), and its fourth President. Millie taught residents how to tie a knot, and taught emergency nurses to care for emergency patients. She co-edited, with Nedell Lanros, an early 1986 book entitled, Emergency Nursing: A Comprehensive Review. She led delegations as large as 30 emergency nurses to more than a dozen countries spanning the globe, teaching and learning as well. Millie has a fascinating history—at one point, sitting at an impressive Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) board meeting, thanks to a connection with a fellow Journal of Emergency Nursing editorial board member at the time—Ann Bliss, the recipient of an RWJ grant. Millie mentioned her Nurse Practitioner (NP) curriculum to Ann, who said, “send me a copy.” Millie so convinced RWJ, that they awarded her $5 million dollars to start a NP program in Pennsylvania, and to help establish similar programs in five other states. She would convince Allegheny General of the need for a Life Flight Program, and helped raise the money for that as well. She brought this second flight program east of the Mississippi to Allegheny General, staffed by flight nurses drawn from Allegheny’s emergency room NP’s. Her success was her warmth and her ability to connect with and bring others together. Millie would sometimes round at 3:00 or 5:00am to keep in touch with the night staff and to make sure that the staff had what they needed and knew they were appreciated. She knew everyone in the hospital by name–and talked to everyone, from the humblest employee to the head of the hospital. Millie’s retirement from Allegheny General was noted by the City of Pittsburgh, PA, and the day was named “Millie Fincke Day.” Despite health challenges, Millie remained active, with countless nursing and health organizations, though she stopped traveling and lecturing internationally. She never used email–she was too busy! As the years went on, some who knew Millie had no idea of what she had accomplished. She rarely said anything about what she had done, only about what she then hoped to do. Millie gave everyone around her a sense of unconditional support and confidence that made them rise to the occasion. She spent a lifetime bringing together nurses, to strengthen the specialty of emergency nursing, and improve the quality of emergency nurses’ care. She accomplished, with others, what could never have been done alone, and in the process, certainly changed the lives of those she worked with, as well as their patients. Millie died on August 27, 2017, at almost 91 years old. At her wake, Fallen Angels gave a moving tribute, and a nurse from another hospital confided in her son that while she never met Millie, “when her name was mentioned, we bowed our heads in respect.” Millie’s flight crew, in full uniform, formed an honor guard at her wake and then lined the sides of her grave during a fitting tribute…a moving fly-over by Life Flight. Karen Wiley is President of the Emergency Nurses Association.