Celebrating Nurses Top Honorees: Jo-Anne Booker, St. Joseph's Hospital
A nurturer by nature
For Celebrating Nurses
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Can braiding a patient’s hair help her heal? It can, and it did for Libby Morley, a patient who spent months in the St. Joseph’s Hospital intensive care unit in the care of Jo-Anne Booker, RN.
Morley had mentioned that the nurse’s braids reminded her of her mother’s beautiful hair, so one afternoon after her shift Booker was determined to braid Morley’s hair.
Barry Williams / AJC Special
Jo-Anne Booker has always wanted to be a nurse. ‘I love helping my patients and my co-workers. I enjoy going to work, and I can’t imagine doing anything else,’ she said.
“What I didn’t know at the time was that she was using the excuse of braiding my hair to force me into sitting in that chair. And it worked,” Morley said. “Her nursing instincts are ingrained. By nature, Jo-Anne Booker is one of the most nurturing and caring people we’ve ever known.”
Booker, 50, knows that nursing is as much about forming good relationships as it is about clinical skills.
“You have to get close enough to your patients and their families to find out what’s important to them, and then you try and incorporate that into your care,” she said. “I encourage patients and their families to bring meaningful pictures into the hospital room, and I listen and ask questions.”
Booker can’t remember when she wasn’t nursing someone. Growing up in Trinidad and in Brooklyn, N.Y., she took care of friends in the neighborhood. She worked as a nursing assistant while attending nursing school and landed a job in critical care when she graduated in 1982.
“People come in with multiple problems and my goal is always to make a tough situation as easy as possible,” Booker said. “You work toward a level of comfort so that people know they can trust you.”
Sometimes Booker cries with patients’ families. Other times she gets the joy of seeing a patient such as Morley overcome obstacles to feel well again.
“She had great family involvement with her care, and I’m just a sucker for love,” Booker said. “I love helping my patients and my co-workers. I enjoy going to work, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”