Rantin | 'She’s a great mentor'

Veteran nurse DeLoach honored as role model

Karen DeLoach is a veteran caregiver, but she knows her job at Palmetto Health Baptist involves many additional roles.

The registered nurse also is a teacher, mentor and leader at the hospital — and her dedication to her field has earned her the Clinical Practice Award from the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses.

The award honors outstanding professional achievement in nursing. DeLoach was selected from nurses across the country and formally recognized during the association’s recent national convention in New Jersey.

DeLoach has worked at a 36-bed unit of surgical patients at Palmetto Health Baptist for more than 27 years.

She is credited for her extensive knowledge in nursing and her willingness to share that knowledge with new nurses.

“She fosters a great learning environment for new nurses,” Shannon Myers, an assistant nurse manager at the hospital, wrote in DeLoach’s nomination letter. “She is a great mentor for the professional nurse.”

It’s a role DeLoach has taken seriously through the years.

“I still remember when I was a new nurse,” she said. “To be able to be a role model and guide them and help them become better nurses is really important.”

DeLoach serves as one of the hospital’s magnet leaders, a role in which she travels to other facilities and brings back new ways to improve the hospital’s operations.

Myers said DeLoach “approaches her work with a positive outlook and makes sure her patients receive the care they deserve.”

AMSN annually recognizes individuals who are outstanding examples of the association’s core values of commitment, opportunity, responsibility and education.

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The South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Program will sponsor a free legal clinic on wills, estates and probate issues Feb. 7 at the Richland County Public Library Sandhills Branch.

The clinic will be led by Roger B. Jellenik of Camden and will run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the library at 1 Summit Parkway in Northeast Richland.

A schedule of upcoming Bar seminars is available online at www.scbar.org/public/legalclinics.asp.

For more information, contact the South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Program at (803) 799-4015, ext. 158, in the Columbia area, or toll free statewide at (800) 395-3425, ext. 158.