As a salute to the contributions made by nurses in Hempstead and Nevada Counties, swark.today is continuing its series of profiles, begun yesterday, of several nurses who serve patients here.

For Alecia Reed, nursing was never something that arrived through a dramatic moment or a lifelong family tradition. Instead, it grew naturally out of friendship, hometown roots and what she now describes as a calling toward caring for others.

Reed, Assistant Director of Nurses at Heather Manor Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Hope, has spent nearly a quarter century in nursing and nearly all of it in the same facility.

She has likewise remained in Hempstead County where her earliest roots are. “I was born and raised here,” Reed said. “I went to school at Spring Hill, a small town.  I’ve been here my whole life. I’ve never left.”

Her introduction to nursing came during high school, inspired by the influence of a close friend who would eventually travel the same professional road. “My best friend Leslie [Ridling] and I both work here as nurses, and we graduated high school together and just decided we’re going to nurse,” Reed said. “We were going to be nurses, and here we are years later.”

Reed first completed the LPN program in Hope and worked for years as a licensed practical nurse before eventually returning to school to earn her RN credentials.

“My husband worked offshore,” she said. “When he came home, I went back and got my RN.”

Now in her 25th year as a nurse and approaching 25 years at Heather Manor as well, Reed said her original plans in nursing actually pointed in a very different direction.

“I graduated nursing school and wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse,” she said. “Loved it. That was my favorite clinical.”

But instead, a friend encouraged her to apply at Heather Manor, a decision that ended up shaping the entirety of her career. “I came, applied, and I’ve been here ever since,” Reed said.

Over the years, what has kept her there, she explained, has been both the work itself and the residents who depend upon the staff daily. “My passion for taking care of other people,” Reed said when asked what continues to motivate her. “Everybody here has something that they need assistance with, whether they come in on our skilled side, where they’re just here for some rehab to be able to get back to the community, or if they’re here for our long-term care, and they need nurses to help care for them, 24 hours a day.”

The scope of care at Heather Manor has evolved substantially during her years, particularly as technology has transformed medicine generally and long-term care specifically.

“When I first started here, everything was on paper,” Reed said. “We had color coding by shifts, and everything was paper: paper orders, paper charts.”

Today, she said, computers, electronic charting and telehealth have changed nearly every aspect of the profession. “We now have televisits where patients don’t necessarily have to go out to see the provider,” she said, adding that the facility now also has an in-house nurse practitioner, which was unavailable when she first began.

“You’ve always got an iPad or a phone that you can do a telehealth visit on,” Reed said. “Where, in the past, you would send them to the ER.” That technological progression has coincided with the expansion of rehabilitation and short-term recovery services at Heather Manor, where Reed now helps oversee a broad range of operations.

“I’m the Assistant Director of nurses here,” she said. “I help with a little bit of everything we do.” That includes work with physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and discharge planning for residents preparing to return home.

“A lot of them are able to get better, return to the community and keep living life,” Reed said.

The rhythm of her own days, however, can vary dramatically depending upon the needs of the facility. “Sometimes you come in during the middle of the night; sometimes you’re here in the evenings,” she said. “We come in, make rounds, check our patients, make sure everybody’s good, make sure all the staff has showed up.”

From there, the day can move in almost any direction. “I’m not assigned to a hall.  I help out just all over the building,” Reed said.

One of the most difficult stretches of her career came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when nursing homes across the nation became centers of both intense scrutiny and enormous responsibility. “A lot of uncertainty and a lot of changes occurred,” Reed said of that period.

Because nursing homes operate under extensive state oversight, she said protocols changed constantly as guidance evolved based on new information. “We had mandates coming down from the Department of Health all the time, changing what we were supposed to do,” she said.

Heather Manor established a dedicated COVID ward while implementing extensive protective measures and staff training requirements. “We had a COVID hall or unit,” Reed said. “We would have a whole unit secured that was COVID only.”

The experience, she said simply, “was a lot.”

Even now, however, she believes some lessons from that period remain valuable, especially for those visiting residents. “If those in the general public use their standard universal precautions, wash hands, cover coughs, things like that, it still works.  From the beginning of COVID until now,” Reed said.

Outside the facility itself, Reed has also used her medical experience within the broader community, including volunteering with school athletics and the Charitable Christian Clinic.

“When my son was coming through high school, I helped with the football team,” she said, in response to any injuries.

The profession itself, Reed believes, remains deeply important not only because of medical needs but because of the human qualities required to sustain it. “There’s always going to be a need for caring for people,” she said.

Her own daughter, currently pursuing graduate studies while playing softball at Southern Arkansas University, has watched nursing closely through her mother’s career, while Reed herself often encourages young people to consider the field.

“To be a nurse is a very rewarding career,” Reed said.

At the same time, she acknowledged that nursing has changed substantially since her childhood, especially where it pertains to looking after patients’ mental health. “When I was little, a nurse came in, took care of you, and you were just fine,” she said. “The roles have changed a whole lot.”

Still, she believes certain qualities remain essential. “I feel like you have to have the servant’s heart to be led and to flourish as a nurse,” Reed said.

Asked about the HBO medical drama The Pitt which, during the recent release of its second season, has attracted attention for its realism, Reed said she found the portrayal unusually accurate. “Honestly, The Pitt is probably one of the best medical shows that I’ve watched, ever,” she said.

Though her own background is not in emergency room medicine, she said the pressures and unpredictability reflected in the series rang true. “It’s life,” Reed said. “It’s exactly what they see on a day-to-day basis.”

One storyline involving a precautionary full shutdown of the hospital’s computer network that lasted half a day struck especially close to home because facilities such as Heather Manor still maintain paper backup procedures in the event technology fails. “We do still have paper orders. We have paper nurses’ notes” in case they are needed at Heather Manor, Reed said.

Despite ongoing national conversations sparked by The Pitt about burnout and staffing shortages in healthcare, Reed said Heather Manor has largely maintained stability because of long-tenured employees and teamwork among department heads and nursing staff. “We have some longevity with our nurses,” she said.

That continuity is reinforced, she noted, by the close relationship the facility has with the nursing programs at the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana. “They come and do clinicals,” Reed said of UAHT students.

As the interview concluded, Reed reflected briefly on the workplace itself, pointing not only to the renovated facility but to the atmosphere among the staff who work there daily. “We have a good team effort here,” she said. “I enjoy coming to work every day.”

Looking around the recently updated office space and renovated interiors of Heather Manor, Reed smiled slightly before summing up what the facility offers in the simplest terms possible.

“We have a good group of nurses,” she said. “We have a good group of department heads. We have a good group of staff, CNAs, the works.” It's a reassuring thought.