Nurse Stories

Stephanie Fidler

Director of Clinical Services
RN

When Stephanie Fidler was 18, and training to be an LPN, she found herself caring for a young child with a brain tumor. The boy had had a difficult time with his illness, and though he had family around him, when he passed they were not with him. Only Stephanie was.

That experience proved to be very emotional for Stephanie, so much so that she began doubting her desire to be a nurse – a job she had dreamed of having ever since she was a girl of eight or nine.

“I remember thinking that I can’t do this,” she says. “I can’t see people suffer. But my mother said, ‘You helped him go through that suffering with greater ease. You were there to hold his hand when no other family member was present.’”

Those words carried much weight for Stephanie, showing her that nursing involved more than what she believed it to be at the time.

“My mother made me realize all the compassion and empathy I could bring to the table as a nurse, and they helped me move down the path of understanding what a nurse really does,” she says. “The empathy, compassion, and drive to help people work through their disease process – those elements are key to this line of work.”

Stephanie has been a nurse since 1971 and has worked for Golden Living and its predecessors collectively for 17 years. Over that time, she has held a number of positions, including charge nurse, MDS coordinator, director of nursing services and clinical services consultant.

Since 2003, she has been Director of Clinical Services for Division 3. In this position, she oversees the clinical service consultants for 26 LivingCenters located across three states, monitoring, educating and mentoring those individuals to make them better leaders and realize the many facets of a nurse’s work.

“I try my best to give them a holistic approach, a strong foundation of knowledge, and a well-rounded background, in which they can later apply their skills,” she says.

“There are so many things you touch in a resident’s life as a nurse, and I want to make sure the people I teach to understand that. I love it when I see that ‘a ha’ moment in their eyes, that they get. That’s the most gratifying component of it.”

As expected, many of the lessons she gives root themselves in the experience she had when she was 18, especially in the way she advises her nurses to factor patients’ families in their care.

“They’re going through a very difficult time and sometimes you need to give them some time to vent,” she says. “Even an hour’s reprieve when it’s needed it, that’s so important with what we do.”