Taryn-Janae Wilcox-Olson, MHS, RN
President Elect
VA Portland Healthcare System, Portland, Oregon

NOVA Chapter 332

Taryn-Janae (TJ) Wilcox-Olson, MHS, RN, NOVA’s President Elect has been a NOVA member since 2010. She began her VA career in 2008 as an RN in mental health at the VA Black Hills, South Dakota and became Patient Safety Manager in 2011. In 2018 she decided that she despised snow  and moved to the Pacific Northwest where she has yet to shovel rain! TJ transferred to the VA Portland Health Care System as the Patient Safety Manager.

Since joining NOVA, TJ has been a member of many committees. She notes that joining committees heightens the sense of engagement and increases the feeling of belonging to a bigger team.  This has allowed her to participate in organizational level decisions. Her first committee was the Membership Committee.  TJ learned the importance of reaching out to members and recruiting new ones along the way. She helped her first chapter at Black Hills grow from just 6 members to 32 within a year. She continues to  serve on  the Membership Committee and helps with chapter outreach. In June, TJ is meeting with a group of Transition-to-Practice nurses at the Tomah VA to discuss the importance of joining nursing organizations and getting involved as part of professional practice.

TJ’s favorite committee is the Annual Meeting Planning Committee. She enjoys helping make decisions about the meeting locations,  host cities and watching the program come together from  an idea to a well-orchestrated event. She was the co-chair for the Annual Meetings in Reno, Louisville, and NOVA’s first virtual meeting in 2020. She is serving as chairperson of this year’s meeting in Las Vegas. The meeting will have a new and different look but will be better than past meetings. TJ is excited to see the network of NOVA nurses (post pandemic) back together again. The energy of an in-person meeting can’t be beat. We hope to see you in Las Vegas in October!

NOVA’s Licensed Practical Nurses Reveal Their “Why”— and How NOVA Supports That Mission 

NOVA’s Licensed Practical Nurses discuss the reasons why they became a nurse and why they chose to join the Department of Veterans Affairs. They describe some of the difficulties while working in their VA clinics and explain how NOVA has helped them on their journey in service as an LPN.

Why NOVA LPNs Choose Nursing

There are many reasons why people become nurses and join the VA. For NOVA Board of Director, Betty Ogren, LPN, VA Northern Indiana Health Care System, her grandfather was her inspiration to care for  Veterans. She recalls that he was not able to get the help he needed because of the distance from his local VA. “I wanted to take care of Veterans,” Ogren said. “I could not take care of my grandpa, a U.S. Army Veteran, when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The VA was more than three hours from my grandparents, and they had very little help. I wanted to help Veterans, caregivers, and spouses navigate the system and receive the appropriate support.”

Carol McTavish, LPN at VA Boston Healthcare System, has worked in the VA for nearly 30 years and says that it was fate that led her to a  career in the VA. “Looking back, it seems that Nursing chose me..."  McTavish said. “We were in the middle of traveling to Ireland when my best friend submitted an application to nursing school. It was so much simpler 30-plus years ago! My mom received a call saying that I had been accepted and the start date was the day after we arrived home. It felt like fate.”

Handling Difficult Times

During the pandemic, LPNs have been some of the frontline workers keeping their patients healthy. According to Mary Hill, LPN, TCT, when the pandemic first started, her clinic had to completely pivot with patient visits on short notice. “The COVID-19 crisis has changed how we do patient visits. We switched to training providers and patients to use iPads and other personal devices to make  services available. It was very stressful for the providers, patients, and staff, but we did it!”

Ogren shared a Veterans Crisis Line incident when a Veteran left her an instant message requesting assistance with a patient  on her team, which was a rare occurrence. The Veteran had called stating he was in the parking lot in a car with tinted windows and was armed. “He planned to stay there and if approached would shoot. I was able to work with the crisis line worker to get the necessary information to assist VA and local police. The Veteran left the campus, was picked up by local police and taken to a mental health facility for help.”

LPNs and NOVA

According to McTavish, NOVA has helped give LPNs a voice and the opportunity to be a part of webinars and committees. “I enjoy the support of other members when I need someone to talk to.” 

For Ogren, joining NOVA has let her expand her reach within the organization and see all the hard work that is involved. “NOVA has been really phenomenal. I joined  NOVA in 2015, but did not get involved right away. I had expressed interest in serving on the Board of Directors, not thinking that I would have a chance. I was appointed to the board last year, and that is when my eyes were opened as to all things that the NOVA does.”

Ogren mentioned when she went to her first NOVA Hill Day: “To be able to stand in front of a Congressman or Congresswoman or the House Committee or Senate Committee and have them say, ‘What do you need?’ was something I will never, ever forget.”

NOVA is here to support all of its members in any way possible, through committees, education, events, advocacy, or more.

Connect with fellow VA Nurses from around the country during NOVA’s Virtual Hill Day on June 10. Click here to find out more!

Teresa Morris, Director, Advocacy & Government Relations

Greetings NOVA Members –

I hope all of you have been able to check out the details of our Virtual Hill Day scheduled for June 10, 2021. NOVA has stepped up its advocacy and will be discussing important issues with members of congress during the day’s events.

For more information and details: NOVA on the Hill Day (vanurse.org)

House and Senate VA Committees continue to move legislation and it looks like some type of Veterans package will be passed prior to Memorial Day.

Many of the bills deal with Veterans exposed to toxic substances which has been called the “Agent Orange” of this generation. The Veterans Service Organization community supports immediate presumption of exposure for those who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other sites where service men and women have been exposed to burn pits and other toxins. VA has asked for more time to study data and details, but many in the Veteran community are warning there is no time to waste for those who have serious illnesses due to exposure to chemicals.

Legislation passed by the House includes bills that would provide equity for all Veterans, improve mental healthcare access, provide COVID-19 relief, strengthen oversight of VA, and expand economic opportunities for Veterans. One bill in particular, H.R. 1948, the VA Employee Fairness Act of 2021, would expand collective bargaining rights for medical professionals at VHA. The bill would ensure that Title 38 healthcare professionals—including nurses, physicians, dentists, and physician assistants have the same workplace rights currently granted to other VA clinicians and federal employees. The bill currently is co-sponsored by 71 members of Congress and is supported by AFGE and National Nurses United.

NOVA has been actively involved in our own conversations with VA Committee staff – we have been discussing pay caps and the need to revise them to end compression between all grades. We believe this will enable VA to recruit and retain healthcare professionals in high-cost areas and continue to provide timely access to high quality care for Veterans.

We continue to voice our support for bills which will improve mental healthcare, vaccine distribution and other issues that are a part of our 2021 Legislative Priority Goals.  The Link to our goals can be found on the NOVA website: 2021_nova_legislative_priori.pdf (ymaws.com)

I ask you to check out the U.S. House and U.S. Senate links on our website as well and talk to your Congressional members about VA issues important to you – and take note of any members in your state that sits on the House and Senate VA Committees. 

The House and Senate VA Committee members can be found at the links below:

Senate VA Committee Members released - list of members:

Committee Members | United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs  

House VA Committee Members list Members | About | The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs  

I look forward to working with all of you and thank you for your continued advocacy on behalf of VA nurses and the communities in which you live.

Stay Tuned!

NOVA nurses have been invited to participate in a research project conducted by the  Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity of George Washington University called Moral Injury Among Nurses: Stories of Fractured Hearts & Wounded Souls. The initiative aims to help nurses, the healthcare industry, and the public understand and address moral injury among nurses in a wide range of settings.

The goal of this study is to inform nurses, the healthcare industry, and broader public about the challenges facing nurses and about the importance of system level changes to address these problems. They will do this by collecting and sharing nurses’ stories from a variety of settings. Through the narratives of moral injury that individual nurses have experienced, the project will identify major constraints on nurses that are weakening the social conscience of the profession.Nurses have the option of submitting written commentaries, audio or video recordings, or requesting that we contact them for a recorded interview. All stories will be anonymous, unless requested otherwise. 

To Learn More click here.

Mike Holy, MS, RN

Nurse Emeritus

VA Maryland Health Care System, Baltimore, Maryland

NOVA Chapter 218

So, my wife, Miriam Rogers Holy, MSN, RN, ACM, runs for Director on the NOVA Board, gets elected, and I am tasked to write an article on retirement as a nurse and a Nurse Emeritus of NOVA.  Ok, you asked for it, but be forewarned, it may not be pretty!

Shortly after I retired from the Baltimore VA in 2014, a few months before Miriam and I finally took the plunge, I began driving for the Red Cross one day per week, delivering blood products in the Baltimore metro area. About two years later, when hurricane Matthew hit North Carolina, I was directed to drive a 24-foot straight job (non-truck driving lingo – a “box truck”) to the Tar Heels State, drop it off, and come back the next day in a chaser van which was to follow me. Given I had spent two weeks with a VA disaster team in 2004 in Florida, and the following year, again with a VA team, outside of New Orleans, post Katrina, I stayed down in NC working that Red Cross Disaster for fourteen days. A few years later, I look back and see I have been to numerous hurricanes or floods (Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, North Carolina again, and South Carolina ) two California Wildfires (Paradise Fire in 2018, and the Wine Country Fires in 2019, Kincaid Sonoma County) along with one Mass Shooting deployment to Virginia Beach, Virginia, sandwiched in between May – June, 2019.   

Oh, yeah, … the “underpants” in the title …. while delivering blood products for the Red Cross, my dispatcher one day called me and asked, “Mike, would it be ok if I changed your route around a little bit this week?”   I told him, “No problem” … thinking instead of north Baltimore, he was sending me south, or perhaps out to the Eastern Shore … and then I followed up by telling him, “I told you, you have me on Tuesdays; I don’t care where you send me!” His reply …. “Ok, grab two pairs of underpants, and get into the office by noon!”  When I got in, underpants in a backpack … I asked … “Ok, what’s what?” He told me, I was to take one of two trucks down to NC and drop it off, and come back in the “chaser van” the next day. When I mentioned that I had done Katrina with the VA, and asked if he thought they may need some extra nurses down in NC … he did not miss a beat!  His response to me …. “Ok, go home, and grab eight more pairs of underpants!”   

To this day, I measure my deployments, by how many pairs of underpants I leave the house with at the start of any deployment! (I warned you guys it would not be pretty!)

So…there’s more …. a lot more, actually! No, none of it entails any articles of clothing, but … included are … pandemic activities, politics, a presidential position for a National Veterans’ Political Organization, and a nearly four-month travel nurse position/deployment last year, fighting COVID-19.  However, as I was advised by my better half that there was a limit to how long this will go …. catch up with me in Las Vegas at convention in October 2021 buy me a beer (or two) … and I will gladly fill ya in! Retirement? Yeah…sorta!