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Accountability, Stewardship, Professionalism, Integrity, Respect, and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Every quarter — UVA Health recognizes Uteam Members of the Month for their outstanding service and their commitment to those ASPIRE values. We're excited to announce the latest winners, honored during the Uteam Member of the Month Quarterly Breakfast in the Education Resource Center in November 2024:

University Medical Center

Luella Glanzer, MSN, RN, Nursing Professional Governance Clinical Leader
Uteam Member of the Month: June 2024
Nominated by: Ava Speciale, Ashley Noguera, Rhonda Beyeler, and Leanne Fox

"Planning Nurses Week each year is one project of many that Luella leads for our team. This week impacts thousands of team members and takes months of planning. Her collaborative style makes everyone’s voice feel heard. She is efficient, organized, and leads with such a steadfast, kind nature that you want to do right by her."

"She really pours her heart into ensuring our nurses have a say in their special week, and that our team is able to execute it equitably. She is not just a team player but she is a coach making sure that all her players feel appreciated and heard. Her passion to recognize and celebrate nurses exemplifies our ASPIRE values and contributes to efforts to retain our nursing workforce.” 

Mary Carpenter, Administrative Assistant, Neuro Intensive Care Unit

Uteam Member of the Month: July 2024
Nominated by: Crystal Richard

"Mary looks forward and finds the best ways to connect with patients ... she maintains accountability by keeping up with her PCT [patient care technician] certifications and education that is pertinent to the job. Mary worked with a MICU [Medical Intensive Care Unit] nurse and our unit shared governance to bring the Three Wishes Project to our unit, which offers equal end-of-life care. Mary works with me and our managers to onboard new hires. She helps with all IT access, shows them around the unit, helps them figure out scheduling/payroll, etc., offering her personal phone number to all. She wants everyone to feel heard and have a go-to person. She has respect for seasoned staff and brand new hires and is such a vital member of our team."

Michaela Gilliam, Access Associate Senior, and Sheri Goode, Access Associate, Western Albemarle Family Medicine
Uteam Members of the Month: September 2024
Nominated by: Robin Smoot

“Michaela has gone above and beyond in working in our Crozet satellite clinic under extreme staffing constraints, remaining steadfast to provide excellent care to those patients who come into our clinic or call. She has been the face of this clinic welcoming patients and visitors with a smile. She has been willing to work overtime to help ensure that all needed work has been completed without ever complaining. Michaela has always put the patient at the center of everything she does without wavering. Sheri also continues to be professional and has done an excellent job. Sheri is able to multitask and provide excellent care to those patients and visitors who are in the clinic. Without Sheri and Michaela working as a team and remaining dedicated to our clinic and our patients, this clinic would have truly suffered.”

Theresa Humphreys, Access Associate Senior, Surgical Sub Specialties
Uteam Member of the Month: August 2024

“Theresa is a true angel. She is the leader of EREC and is always trying to make her team feel that they matter. She goes up and above for every activity we do from food to coat drives to helping a family at Christmas after they lost their home to a fire. Theresa has a huge heart and really deserves to be celebrated. For a coworker who had fallen on hard times, she arranged a collection to help."

"I had surgery and was expected to be out for six weeks. Things didn't go as planned and it kept me out for six months. Theresa came to my rescue with food, cleaning services, friendship, and a shoulder to cry on with my frustrations. She donated many hours of her hard-earned PTO [paid time off] to me as I had exhausted all of mine. I believe I could go on and on as to why she deserves this award. I don't know of a better way to show her just how much she means to all her coworkers. She TRULY deserves it.”

UVA School of Medicine

Sarah Statler, Clinical Research Coordinator, UVA Cancer Center
Uteam Member of the Month: June 2024
Nominated by: Lacey Garrett

"Sarah demonstrates UVA Health ASPIRE values in a host of ways, but the two values that she exemplifies the most, in my opinion, are professionalism and respect. There hasn’t been a day that Sarah has not stepped up to offer help to her team members, whether it be covering for patient visits or assisting in other ways. Everyone Sarah interacts with is met with kindness and grace, which is truly admirable from the outside looking in. Where Sarah goes above and beyond, though, is her interaction with our patients. As clinical research coordinators, many times we meet patients on their lowest days. Sarah doesn’t hesitate to pick them up through her compassionate and positive attitude, often going out of her way to check-in on them and accommodate their needs and requests.”

Lakin Underwood, Clinical Research Coordinator, Gastroenterology
Uteam Member of the Month
Nominated by: Gabriella Laskey

"I was triple booked and in desperate need of dry ice to ship my samples out. I reached out to Lakin, as she is an expert and leader in clinical research at UVA and I have worked with her previously and know about her talents and problem solving ability. Without hesitation, she helped me to find the seven pounds of dry ice I needed to ship my samples. We also devised a solution to replace her resources with some I could share back later in the week. This is one event that evidenced Lakin's commitment to research, teamwork, and ASPIRE values. She brought such a sense of calm and peace to my day that anything was possible to solve if you ask for help. I hope that everyone at UVA Health can model Lakin and her ability to get work done and work across silos. I think this should be standard and I'm so proud to call Lakin my friend and colleague.”

Dawn Crow, Assistant Billing Manager, Department of Surgery
Uteam Member of the Month: August 2024
Nominated by: Keith Bachmann, Adam Shimer, Bobby Chabbra, MD, and Mary Leigh Thacker

"Dawn's leadership has been critical to the UVA School of Medicine/University Medical Center/HS transition to central revenue cycle integration. She has navigated this challenging process by providing education, support, and resources across departments and not just Orthopaedics. She has been a coder in Orthopaedics for 20+ years and she has helped lead our team for more than a decade. Her performance has been exceptional as Orthopaedics has experienced tremendous growth. She helped with our transition to the UVA Health Orthopaedic Center. She is the go-to coder for advice and guidance. I can think of no one more deserving for this award.”

University Physicians Group (UPG)

Nora Barrett, Occupational Therapist (OT)
Uteam Member of the Month: June 2024
Nominated by: Tim Kibbler

"Nora is an OT, a certified hand therapist, and is wound care-certified. She has a wealth of wound care knowledge and presents at conferences all over the country. Nora’s love for education and passion to help others has made a huge impact to the UVA Health team. She has greatly advanced wound care treatment within the hand therapy team, Orthopedics, and UVA Health as a whole. Nora is presenting one of her quarterly, wound care in-services for therapists, medical assistants, nurses, athletic trainers, physician assistants, and physicians. The in-services help team members provide the best evidence-based wound care for UVA Health patients."

"In addition to her quarterly wound care in-services, every single day, team members reach out to Nora for her wound care advice, which she always happily provides, even when her day may be overwhelmingly busy. Because of Nora, not only are we optimizing patient outcomes, but we also truly are saving one hand at a time. We are very fortunate to have her as part of the UVA healthcare team.”

Ryan Ballew, Supervisor, IT Desktop Support; Spencer Albright, PC Specialist; John Turner, IT Tech Senior; David Jones, PC Specialist; and Christopher Carlson, Referral Authorization Specialist
UTeam Members of the Month: July 2024
Nominated by: Mary McKenzie and UPG leadership

“The UPG Desktop Support Team dove in head first to support their HIT colleagues in responding to the CrowdStrike outage. They worked around the clock through the weekend to help ensure emergent patient care needs were met, followed by UPG and UVA Health business operations. They met this crisis with a spirit of service and dedication to our shared purpose, and without complaint, despite long hours and frustrating circumstances. This team is embodying the best of UVA Health in our mission to transform health and inspire hope to all Virginians and beyond.”