Greenville, N.C. – Listeners across eastern North Carolina tuned in to make an incredible impact during the 28th annual “Music for Miracles” radiothon, raising $113,734 in support of the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital at ECU Health Medical Center, which serves pediatric patients across a 29-county region. Since its inception in 1998, the radiothon has now raised over $4 million, directly enhancing the hospital’s programs and services.
“Year after year, I am deeply moved by the remarkable generosity of this community,” said Elise Ironmonger, director of programs for the ECU Health Foundation. “Their unwavering commitment to enhancing health care for children in eastern North Carolina is nothing short of inspiring. I also want to express my gratitude to the families who share their heartfelt stories with us. These children are true miracles, and it is a privilege to shine a spotlight on the exceptional care they have received at Maynard Children’s Hospital.”
This year’s radiothon aired on all Inner Banks Media radio stations, including 107.9, Talk 96.3 and 103.7, Oldies 94.1 and 102.7, and 94.3 The Game. All funds raised through Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Hospital events like the radiothon are allocated entirely to supporting programs and services at Maynard Children’s Hospital. These contributions help procure life-saving medical equipment, enhance educational opportunities for patients and staff, provide comforting resources for children and develop new, state-of-the-art facilities.
“I am so proud of another successful radiothon,” said Henry Hinton, president, Inner Banks Media. “I am amazed every year of the generosity of our listeners and to surpass $4 million over the years is really something we can all be proud of. There is no greater feeling of pride than helping to raise funds for this great hospital that cares for our children in eastern North Carolina. It is a great privilege for us to use our radio stations in this way.”
For those who missed the radiothon but would still like to contribute, donations can be made at www.GiveToCMN.com.
The ECU Health Foundation recently recognized four team members at ECU Health Medical Center with 2024 Brody Awards, on behalf of the Brody families of Kinston and Greenville.
The Brody Awards, established in 1988, are given to team members who demonstrate unparalleled care, compassion, professionalism and commitment in all they do. The awards honor a registered nurse, an allied health professional, a clinical support team member and an Intensive Care Unit nurse.
The 2024 honorees are: Pam Hall, triage telephone nurse in Medical Oncology; Melinda Edwards, trauma registry supervisor; Kaitlin Lehrke, staff nurse II on the Surgical Intensive Care Unit; and Stacey Greenway, former director of Cardiovascular Disease Management.
Outstanding Nurse of the Year: Pam Hall
Pam Hall started her career as a nurse 42 years ago and joined then-Pitt County Memorial Hospital in 1991. She spent time on a number of units – pediatric intensive care, admissions testing, recovery and pre-operative – as well as the ECU Health SurgiCenter and ECU Health Pain Management before moving to her current role.
Today, as a triage telephone nurse, she connects with patients with cancer who call in for concerns or symptoms they are experiencing.
“Any of the patients that come to the hematology, oncology, surgical oncology clinics, they’re all given our phone numbers to call if they have any kind of problems, concerns, or if they’re having symptoms from chemotherapy, post-operative complications, anything like that, they call us,” Hall said. “Our calls are answered by nurses, and so we try our best to handle things for the nurses in the clinic so they can focus on the patients in clinic and anything that my co-worker and I can do to get an issue addressed or taken care of, we do.”
Whether it’s reaching out to the symptom management team, helping get patients to scheduling for an appointment or answering a quick question for a patient, Hall said she’s grateful to be someone patients and team members can count on when help is needed.
Hall said she enjoyed the interview process involved in the selection of Brody Award winners as it gave her an opportunity to reflect on the work she’s done.
“I’m just so very thankful to the Brody family that they thought I was worthy of this award. The team of people that interviewed me for this asked such thought-provoking questions and then I’m just humbled that they felt like I deserve this award,” Hall said. “I’m a telephone triage nurse and I told them in the interview, ‘I don’t do hands-on patient care anymore, so I really don’t feel like I am deserving of this award.’ I’m trying to look not too far in the distant future of when I retire and this was my transition. It’s been a struggle because I love hands-on patient care so the fact that they chose me was very humbling.”
Clinical Support Staff of the Year: Melinda Edwards
Melinda Edwards started working with trauma registry at then-Pitt County Memorial Hospital through a student job at East Carolina University in 1995 and joined the team full time 26 years ago.
Edwards said it’s been a joy to work in trauma registry over the years, thanks to a strong team and knowing her work makes a difference.
“The team is phenomenal, and I really do like the people I work with. They really have the best interest of the patient at heart. We’re not bedside, but you’ve got to have the data to be able to support any initiative,” Edwards said. “In addition to being a really great group from the surgeons and nurses to my team, it’s knowing that I am making an impact directly on patient care and for the injured patients of eastern North Carolina who come through our doors.”
As a Wayne County native, she said serving the region she has called home all her life is especially meaningful and she’s proud to help patients and families experiencing trauma.
While Edwards said she was humbled by the recognition as a Brody Award winner, she was excited to take the opportunity to highlight the important work her team does each day. The trauma registry team compiles data of all trauma events that require a hospital visit and helps the system make informed decisions on care pathways, prevention, improvements and more. While most would just associate trauma with direct patient care teams, she said the work behind the scenes is vitally important as well.
“There’s a whole other group of team members involved, and that’s trauma registry – they’re the engine to the car,” Edwards said. “I tell my team every opportunity I get, ‘What they do is incredibly important because we can’t move forward without data, we can’t do the research without data. The leadership team recognizes that, it’s about everybody in that division that’s helping move this system forward.”
ICU Nurse of the Year: Kaitlin Lehrke
Kaitlin Lehrke is a staff nurse on the SICU at ECU Health Medical Center and joined the team as a new graduate nurse from East Carolina University’s College of Nursing in June of 2020. She said it was an interesting experience to start her career as a nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the team in trauma has helped her develop as a nurse.
Lehrke said the team is like a family to her, something that started when she first visited the SICU unit as a nursing student during her rotations.
“I remember walking in as a student absolutely terrified but I felt very welcomed by everyone that I met,” she said. “I felt welcomed in a way that was more than just, ‘We want you to be successful because we need you here.’ I felt welcomed because people genuinely wanted me to be successful. Everyone I came into contact with, my manager, coworkers, educators, there was no option but to be successful. I felt that everyone went out of their way to make sure, even as a student, I had the resources to be successful.”
While interviews for Brody Awards are meant to be in person, Lehrke had a virtual interview in October as she was heading to western North Carolina to assist with relief following Hurricane Helene. Originally the plan for her group was to do search and rescue but the area she visited needed more help with getting houses ready to be rebuilt.
“The church we partnered with had us at a house where the foundation had completely failed, so we were trying to get stuff out,” Lehrke said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It felt like a movie of just like this town had just been ransacked, people were emptying out their houses, there were piles and piles of people’s livelihoods and family heirlooms on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. It was tough to see.”
Lehrke said she returned to western North Carolina during Pitt County Schools’ spring break to continue supporting rebuilding and recovery efforts.
Allied Health Professional of the Year: Stacey Greenway
Over the years, Stacey Greenway has nominated others for Brody Awards but never considered that she may be nominated or selected for an award herself. She said the team she works alongside of and the progress of patients seen in cardiovascular and pulmonary rehabilitation has guided her work over the years.
“It was very exciting to learn I’d been selected, but it was more humbling than anything else. There are so many people in this health system that dedicate themselves to their work and to their patient care,” Greenway said. “It’s such an honor to be highlighted and I’m just proud of the work we get to do. We all work really hard, but it’s also fun to know you’re supporting patients in your community.”
During the interview process, Greenway said she was grateful for the opportunity to reflect on her time with ECU Health and the team she has supported along the way. Though she has since moved to a new role within the system, she received the award as director of cardiovascular disease management.
Over the last year, she said, cardiac rehab at ECU Health has made great strides to support patients and expand services offered in the region. She said her team examined how they can best educate patients in cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation and how they can best help patients understand the rehabilitation process.
“That project was great and the whole team worked together to make that happen,” Greenway said. “Then we worked together with our partners in ECU Health Physicians to be able to open intensive cardiac rehab in Roanoke Rapids which has been unserved, not underserved, for quite some time in cardiac rehabilitation. It’s nice to be able to have that service there as a part of the trajectory of patient care.”
Congratulations to the 2024 Brody Award winners!
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Chris Smith, the vice president of finance and operations for the ECU Health Foundation, was working out at the ECU Health Wellness Center when the director pulled him aside and told him about the Rock Steady Boxing program – a non-contact, boxing-inspired fitness routine specifically created for patients with Parkinson’s disease and similar movement disorders.
“They were looking for help with starting up the program – equipment, training for a few coaches, that sort of thing,” Smith said. “I told him we’d take a look at how the Foundation could help, and as it turned out, we were able to provide them the funds they needed to get the program started.”
Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, stiffness and difficulty with balance and coordination. Symptoms worsen over time, causing difficulty with walking, talking or other daily activities. While there is no cure, physical activity can improve many symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, slow the progression of the disease process and improve patients’ quality of life.
First created in Indianapolis in 2006, Rock Steady Boxing is now an international nonprofit program with more than 840 certified affiliates. Now, ECU Health’s Wellness Center counts itself among those numbers because of the Foundation’s support.
Smith said it was gratifying to know that money given by donors was used in such a meaningful way.
“This demonstrates the impact of what our donors do for their friends and families in the region. It showed the tangible impact philanthropy has on the lives of people in eastern North Carolina.” Smith also had a personal connection to the program; his father had Parkinson’s. “He passed away right before the pandemic. He was doing rehab, but he could never get back on his feet.”
With those donor-provided funds, which covered the cost of coach training in Indianapolis and the necessary equipment, the ECU Health Wellness Center was able to establish a Rock Steady Boxing program in 2023. Two of the coaches trained for the program were Kiara Robins, the lead exercise specialist, and Cas Costa, an exercise physiologist II. More than 36,000 people live with Parkinson’s disease in North and South Carolina, and Costa highlighted the value of having this program in the area.
“I didn’t realize at first the impact it would have, and I didn’t know how few locations offered the class.” That’s true; the ECU Health Wellness Center is currently only one of three locations to offer the program in eastern North Carolina. As a result, Robins said that their class has grown quickly: “We started with just three or four members but now we’re up to ten or twelve. We have people come from Rocky Mount, Kinston, Grimesland, Snow Hill and Ayden looking to do the program. We’re steadily growing, and we’re seeing great results.”
Those results are measured through balance and gait tests, such as the Berg Balance test and the Get up and Go test. “Our first four participants have gone from high fall risks to medium or low risks,” Robins said. “Some couldn’t even complete components of the tests, but they now can.”
Justin Mendoza, one of the participants in the class and its youngest member, attested to the program’s positive effects. “They [the coaches] really put their heart into thinking of exercises. You have someone who has studied this and knows what you’re going through. I’ve improved in my strength and walking, and I don’t fall as often,” he said.
While some clients, like Mendoza, heard about the Greenville class when theirs shut down, others received referrals from their physical therapists or physicians. Dr. Temitope Lawal, an ECU Health movement disorder neurologist, is one of those doctors to refer patients to the program.
“Exercise slows the progression of Parkinson’s,” he said. “It’s an extrapolation of the saying, ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it.’ This program makes you accountable and asks you to move your muscles as much as you can.” Dr. Lawal also noted the social value of the program. “It’s an avenue for interaction with others who have Parkinson’s, so it’s like an informal support group.” Costa agreed: “The biggest benefit is the sense of community. It’s hard to go to a regular gym and know what to do. But here, everyone has Parkinson’s so there’s a level of comfort with the activities.”
That accessibility to specialized exercise programs is just one of the things that sets apart the ECU Health Wellness Center.
“The Wellness Center is more than a gym,” Robins said. “You have trained staff here, all with a degree in exercise and certified in one or more areas to better serve the population.” Costa also emphasized the value of specialty-trained staff. “We’re a wellness center, which is different from a gym. In a gym you can’t see a dietician or a lifestyle coach or go next door for a physical therapy appointment. We have a full-circle of wellness with staff trained to help patients with Parkinson’s, arthritis, orthopedic needs, cancer and other diagnoses.”
Both coaches acknowledged that collaboration is required to make Rock Steady Boxing and other programs successful.
“I’m working towards a Ph.D. in kinesiology, and in school we’re learning about the relationship between physicians and exercise physiologists,” said Costa. “Rock Steady Boxing is an example of that collaboration. ECU Health supporting this program helps us build relationships with the doctors and specialists in the network.”
This partnership provides access to valuable resources and complements the medications patients with Parkinson’s must take to combat the symptoms.
Membership is not required to participate in Rock Steady Boxing. “90 percent of our participants are non-members,” Robins said. Participants pay for eight sessions per month, but there’s also a drop-in rate for those who have less predictable schedules. Those who are unsure if they want to join can observe a class for free, and they can participate in the class on a month-to-month basis with no obligation.
Robins said the program has plans to continue its growth so it can better serve the region, and both she and Costa shared their appreciation to the Foundation for supporting the program.
“We’re grateful to have this program here in Greenville,” Robins said. “We’re still in the beginning stages, but we want to expand as much as we can and get more members. We want to encourage everyone with Parkinson’s to participate and to let them know we’re here to help as much as we can.” Mendoza championed the program and the coaches for their hard work: “I love the class. We have fun, and the coaches know what they’re doing. You don’t feel intimidated or self-conscious, and it gives you a sense of pride.”