Chapter 09: A Philosophy for the Department of Nursing
Files
Loading...
Identifier
HilkemeyerR_01_20000523_C09
Publication Date
5-23-2000
Publisher
The Historical Resources Center, Research Medical Library, The University of Texas Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Keywords
Building the Institution; Leadership; On Leadership; Mentoring; On Mentoring; MD Anderson Culture Research, Care, and Education; Building/Transforming the Institution; Education; On Education
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Louis J. Marchiafava, PhD:
From your years here, especially in the beginning, did you evolve a set of goals and objectives that you wanted to accomplish before you would leave?
Renilda Hilkemeyer, RN, BS, Dr.P.H.:
What I did was what I would call the philosophy of the Department of Nursing, and that was I didn't have certain goals here because it really was changing so fast. I was doing things here, I was doing things there, I was doing things somewhere else. I was very active here. And Dr. [R. Lee] Clark liked people to do things. He didn't care about having you sitting around doing nothing if you didn't have to. And so, I was the first nurse, for example, that got the American Cancer Society's Distinguished Service Award. Nobody had gotten it before --scientists or doctors. He was pleased as punch when I got that one.
I think the other thing –goals-- no. I suspect if I had any goal, it was to do the very best job that I could, to see that the nursing was the best quality care that we could provide; that we had adequate education for all levels of staff, and that we worked with all the disciplines that were in the institution at that time. And we did. For example, as soon as I set up one thing, everybody else in the division had set it up, if it was rules or regulations or policies or procedures, the next thing I knew, it was in the Pharmacy, it was in here, it was in here, it was somewhere else. So, I was a good writer. One of the things they kid me about is they call me a prolific writer because I have done a lot of writing and I enjoy writing. I am pretty good at it. I have my own style. I can't tell you how many people stopped me over at the convention last week, and it was kind of funny I didn't know half of them. 'Oh, Ms. Hilkemeyer, I have read your stuff ever since I was a student. You always told it right.' And I never tried to write anything flowery. I always tried to write the basic premise. And people would call me and ask me if I would write. I wasn't doing it just for the heck of it. I would get a call from the magazine, 'could you write something for us?' on that or that. And I tried to write it, so if you didn't know anything about it, you would know something before you got finished. And so, I did do a lot of different things. And I published a lot. And I have had a good time doing it. So anyway.
Recommended Citation
Hilkemeyer, Renilda RN, BS, Dr.P.H. and Marchiafava, Louis J. PhD, "Chapter 09: A Philosophy for the Department of Nursing" (2000). Interview Chapters. 1603.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1603
Conditions Governing Access
Open
