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Map the career of Ken Most, RN, and it’s apparent
he’s tuned into a guidance system, although it’s
quite unlike the high-tech spy plane electronics he
worked on in the U.S. Air Force.
Most’s guidance system is in his chest. It’s
called a heart, and he has followed it from military
duty in the Persian Gulf in 1990 to a civilian nursing
career in the small mountain town of Rifle, Colo.
In 2002, he was named the Colorado Health Care Association’s
“Outstanding Caregiver” for his work at
the Colorado State Veterans Nursing Home.
It’s a 100-bed long-term care facility with a
12-bed unit dedicated to residents with Alzheimer’s
disease. Rules require that 85 percent of residents
be veterans.
“We’ve got a lot of people here who are
very near and dear to us,” said Most, 41. “I’m
a veteran myself. I know they’ve given quite a
bit for their country and now it’s time for their
country to give back to them.”
In his 12 years at the veterans home, beginning as
a certified nursing assistant and now as assistant director
of nursing, Most said a lot of residents have been memorable.
But one, a veteran from Wyoming who died early this
year, is first on his mind.
“He had one leg amputated. He was a very hard
person to take care of,” Most said. “There
were only a couple of people he would let do anything
for him. And I happened to be one of them.
“I truly miss him because he spent his whole
life doing what he wanted to do and when he got down
to a point where he had to be in a nursing home, he
didn’t take it very lightly. And I think that’s
how I’d be, too.”
Although the veterans are at a point in their lives
where they need total care and a safe place to live,
“all of our residents are highly, actively involved
with our activities and our restorative program,”
Most said. “We try to keep them coming back to
a point where they at least have the maximum functioning
for where they’re at.”
Everything at the home is geared toward the residents,
from the restorative program where they work out on
stationary bicycles and with weights under the direction
of a registered nurse and two physical therapists to
special-event meals.
“The other night they had a dinner here for the
residents. It was a really fancy one—a candlelight
dinner where the residents got to get dressed up. A
lot of the managers stayed over and helped serve the
dinner and bus the tables,” Most said.
“I’m a very touchy person,” he said.
“I love to go out and shake hands and touch people.
I love the fact that I can do things for them that make
them feel good. I make them smile and ease their pain.”
It was that touch, that caring and affinity for residents,
that caught the attention of administrators when Most
was working as a certified nursing assistant five years
ago. They asked him to enroll in a new CNA-to-RN program
at Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs.
About a year ago, he was promoted to assistant director
of nursing, which he describes as a little bit of everything.
He deals with families, works closely with nurses on
patient care and care plans and oversees scheduling
and staff development. As for his personal development,
Most said, “I know the facility here eventually
wants to make me the director of nursing, but you just
never know what’s going to happen.”
For the time being, he said, it’s his turn to
“be there” for his wife, Mary, a former
CNA at the veterans home, and their children who backed
him through school.
Asked to look through a three-year window, Most said
he would like to have a bachelor’s degree from
Colorado Mountain College, another step toward an eventual
master’s degree and a career as a nurse practitioner.
“It’s never too late to go back to school,”
he said.
Most said that nurse salaries and benefits have come
a long way in recent years, but the internal guidance
system that has led him thus far tells him that nursing
can’t be about personal economics. “It’s
not a five-day-a-week job. Sometimes, it’s seven
days a week and 12 hours a day,” he said. “If
[patients] need you, you’ve got to be there. You
have to want to give back to the people.”
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