Brooke Dadisman does not try to avoid the heartbreak that sometimes occurs in Flaget Memorial Hospital’s birth center.
In fact, she said she is dedicated to “walking that path” with bereaved parents.
“For them to come into that hospital knowing they’re going to have their baby but then they’re going to leave without their baby — I take that very personally, and the strength that they have to have to be able to do that. So I follow up with them very closely,” she said.
Brooke, the center’s manager since June of this year, and supervisor before that, sends these parents cards on significant dates and gives them a birthstone necklace to commemorate their baby’s birth — what she calls the baby’s “sleepversary” — because it’s their birthday but they were born asleep.
“Those little souls, just because they were born sleeping doesn’t mean they deserve any less than a baby born with a heartbeat,” said Brooke, who was named Flaget’s Leader of the Year in May. ”So I want to make sure they have the same things in their short time here that any other baby would get.”
Brooke began her health care career in 1996 as a nursing assistant at Flaget. She worked for a few years at another hospital after she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing. It wasn’t long before she returned to Flaget in 2004 as a floor nurse in the birth center. She said she considers it home, and her co-workers like family.
“I love my job. If I ever retire, it will be from Flaget. I’m not going anywhere else,” she said.
It’s a job she’s known she wanted to do since she was 2 and decided to be either a teacher or a nurse. “In this aspect, I can do both: I can teach parents, I can teach my fellow coworkers, I can teach myself, so I get the best of both worlds being an OB nurse,” she said.
Brooke is also a certified lactation consultant, neonatal resuscitation program instructor, and mentors new staff and nursing students.
As a veteran nurse at Flaget, she is welcoming to newer, younger staff. “It’s always neat to sit and watch them and how they do things because I can learn from them just as much as they can learn from me,” she said. Because the center is a smaller unit, she added, “there has to be a lot of trust and communication among everybody, so we’re safe for each other and our patients.”
Brooke has been praised for her bedside manner, and she said it’s a bit different at a birth center than on a general floor. “We spend some pretty intense moments with our patients … We get to know them really quickly and we’re in there with them in one of the most tender and terrifying times of their lives.”
Saint Joseph’s core values, she said, “are just basically how I choose to show up to work — that I’m going to make sure I have integrity for myself, that I hold my staff to integrity standards, that we are ethical in all of our decision making, we’re compassionate toward each other, and toward our patient as well as other staff members in the hospital.”
Brooke said it's important “to put our best foot forward” so Bardstown-area residents will want to have their babies at Flaget. “And then if they see that, maybe they can go to our other outlying specialties that we have through Flaget or in the [CHI Saint Joseph Health] community.”
In her area, she and her family donate to little libraries and food banks. But closest to her heart are blood banks, and she has good reason to be a regular donor. Flaget treated her two years ago for episodes of hemorrhaging after she was discharged following a procedure at another hospital.
“They saved me twice,” she said. “So I make sure I donate blood as regularly as I can because so much of it was used on me. So I will go and donate blood to make sure I’m giving back to my community.”
Humankindness works here. Learn more about careers at CHI Saint Joseph Health.
Nurse practitioner Heather Smith has learned a lot about her patients and their barriers to health care by simply taking the time to talk.
Read More Additional information about Celebrating Our People – Meet Heather
From bubble wands and Hot Wheels to Barbie dolls and more, ER technician Irina Dulina is bringing comfort to our littlest patients through the Toy Chest project at Saint Joseph Jessamine.
Read More Additional information about Bringing Comfort to Our Littlest Patients
In the right place at the right time, off-duty Saint Joseph London nurse Jenni Hughes saved a baby’s life. She didn’t find out until afterward that it was kind of a family affair.
Read More Additional information about Celebrating Our People – Meet Jenni
Fill out the form below to receive monthly health news and information to your inbox.
Spirit of Health magazine's print edition is distributed quarterly and focuses on topics related to our CHI Saint Joseph Health purpose and values.
