Two BCH Nurses on a Mission for Alliance for Smiles
- Category: General
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- Written By: Boulder Community Health
Two Boulder Community Health Foothills Hospital nurses have been featured in a newsletter for Alliance for Smiles, a non-profit whose mission is to repair children's cleft lip and palate anomalies in under-served areas of the world.
Nurses Kathy Reece and Jennifer "Emma" Hill met three years ago while working in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) at Foothills Hospital. Between them, they have volunteered for well over 30 missions from Mexico to Myanmar over the years. They recently found themselves working together on the same mission where they were recently photographed and interviewed by Alliance for Smiles.
Both happened into the medical mission field by chance, filling in for nurses who had dropped out at the last second. Now, neither of them can really imagine life without the volunteer work.
“It’s an addiction,” Emma told Alliance for Smiles. “You really feel like you’re making a difference."
“[Every mission reminds you] why you went into nursing,” Kathy said.
Both Emma and Kathy have children, and Kathy’s daughter, Elizabeth, joined her on the mission to Myanmar as the sterilizer, the pharmaceutical student’s first ever mission.