Winchester Medical Center nurse Barbara McWhinney uses a cart as she makes her rounds visiting patients. McWhinney has been selected to receive the Star Award from the American Nurses Association, along with fellow WMC nurse Lisa Dellinger.
Winchester Medical Center nurse Lisa Dellinger, shown at a busy critical care nurses station in the hospital, is one of six finalists to receive a Nightingale Award in honor of acclaimed 19th-century nurse Florence Nightingale. She also is recipient of the Star Award, a new nurse recognition.
Winchester Medical Center nurses Lisa Dellinger (left) and Barbara McWhinney are recipients of the Star Award, a new event recognizing nurses in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. They were among the 100 honorees. Dellinger was also chosen as one of six finalists to receive a Nightingale Award in honor of acclaimed 19th-century nurse Florence Nightingale.
WINCHESTER — Barbara McWhinney remembers the first open-heart patient she ever cared for in her 53-years-and-running nursing career.
“I’ve been allowed to take care of so many people,” she said. “It’s just a wonderful occupation.”
Mostly she has loved being a part of people’s lives and following them from inpatient care to recovery and beyond.
“[It’s] an honor to take care of someone’s family,” she said. “It’s just a great feeling.”
Critical care nurse Lisa Dellinger also has stories to tell from her 24 years as a nurse.
“I love seeing the people get better and go home and feel better and be able to be with their families,” she said.
Recently recalling a very sick patient she cared for at Winchester Medical Center, she marveled at how, despite his long recovery after surgery, he returned home to his family.
“He walked out of there,” she said. “It makes everything you do worthwhile.”
McWhinney and Dellinger, both longtime nurses at WMC, were recognized by the American Nurses Association and The Washington Post at Tuesday’s Star Awards ceremony, a new nurse-recognition event.
Named alongside 100 others from around Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., they were honored in a ceremony streamed online and chosen from 640 nurses nominated by patients, colleagues and families.
Dellinger was also chosen as one of six finalists to receive a Nightingale Award in honor of acclaimed 19th-century nurse Florence Nightingale.
The award ceremony is one of several that bear Nightingale’s name, including ones created by the Nightingale Awards for Excellence in Nursing (nightingalenursingawards.org) in Connecticut and the International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org).
The World Health Organization has named 2020 the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife in honor of the 200th anniversary of Nightingale’s birth on May 12, 1820.
“I am so proud of Barb and Lisa for this recognition as Star nurses,” Anne Whiteside, chief nursing officer at WMC, wrote in a Wednesday email. “You have skillfully cared for hundreds of patients and mentored so many nurses in your careers. You represent the best of nursing and we are so grateful for all you do for every patient, every day.”
Dellinger, 51, of Berkeley County, West Virginia, said she was honored to be selected for the Star Award and even more shocked to learn on Tuesday that she was a Nightingale Award winner.
Dellinger participated Tuesday in a watch party along with several coworkers who watched through Zoom.
“It was a lot of fun. I had no belief that I would win,” she said.
“It was great celebrating with all of my coworkers,” she said. “Without your coworkers, you’re just one person. Nursing is definitely a team effort.”
That team effort made an impact on Jennifer Hoefs, who nominated Dellinger for the Star Award.
“She was my mentor and a charge nurse on night shift,” Hoefs wrote in her nomination submission. “She has an amazing heart for helping new grad nurses, especially in such a tough unit. When a new nurse walks into that unit, Lisa is there to support and help them get on their feet. … She is the nurse that I (and my co-workers) would hand pick to take care of our family members.”
Hoefs said she wanted to “give back” to Dellinger all the support she’s shown her coworkers and nursing students over the years.
“She’s super deserving. She goes above and beyond,” Hoefs said. “She has not lost her joy, she has not lost her passion and compassion.”
Having started her career in the Air Force as a medical technician on a C-130, Dellinger said she’s found ways to grow from and build on the structured chain of command that she loved at the time but said isn’t the same in civilian life.
It’s important to train new nurses to ask questions and work through their intimidation, she said.
“I’ve learned to speak up for my patients more,” she said. “I think we are better advocates now. We don’t just take what the doctor says at face value.”
McWhinney, who lives in Front Royal, came to Winchester Memorial Hospital in 1967 and started as a staff nurse before moving on to head nurse or case manager in nearly every hospital unit, including the emergency room, operating room and recruitment.
Now 79 years old and still working in Wound, Ostomy and Continence services, she said she has the best job.
Her first nursing experience was in the fourth grade when she gave her mother shots to treat tuberculosis while her father was away during World War II. She recalled using a glass syringe for the first time and deciding then and there that she wanted to be a nurse.
Over the years, so much in the nursing industry has changed, she said.
It used to be all women, but now men are nurses too.
Disposable items, now the norm, were unheard of back then. There were no computers; everything was done by hand. And the changes in surgeries and technology, she said, are “just remarkable.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought a lot of firsts for her, with so much uncertainty and visitation restrictions.
“I think one of the hardest things in the beginning [was] when people were so sick and we didn’t allow visitors. You try to give part of yourself to them,” she said.
“Being with a mask all the time is a challenge,” she said. “And people not understanding what is happening.”
However, she said, “the hospital has been wonderful in taking care of us.”
Registered nurse Therese Collins nominated her, saying Wednesday that McWhinney has always been willing to share her knowledge with colleagues.
“She wants you to understand why,” Collins said. “[She’s] a phenomenal teacher, mentor. … I hope when I’ve been a nurse for 50 years, I love it as much.”
Eric McBride, a forensic nurse examiner and clinical manager of Advanced Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine, called McWhinney a “phenomenal resource” for patients and the greater medical community.
“The impact Barb has had on her patients cannot be measured,” he wrote in an email. “Our patient population is a group that needs extra care and attention. … Barb has been at the bedside guiding and educating these patients for decades. Her expert level knowledge coupled with her caring nature have helped thousands of patients in the Valley Health region.
“She has gone beyond the call of duty for her patients many times. She is one of the greatest patient advocates I have ever worked with.”
In a couple of snapshots from her career, McWhinney recalled when she helped a patient dying from cancer sneak her young daughter into the hospital to take several pictures together.
About 18 years later, McWhinney was in the Intensive Care Unit when a doctor asked if she remembered the cancer patient before introducing her to a young nurse who said those photos are the only ones she has of her mother.
“I just became a nurse because of you,” the daughter told McWhinney.
“That was a pretty big moment for me,” McWhinney recalled. “I made someone’s life a little bit better.”
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