Name: Christy Helsel
Job title: Director of Telehealth
Where: Riverside Hospital
Education: BSN from Christopher Newport University, Currently achieving MSN & Admin from the University of South Carolina, set to graduate in May 2021
- What inspired you to get into this field?
My grandmother had a heart attack when I was in college, and I was the person driving her to the hospital. Seeing that right in front of me sparked that want to help care for people, which, as it is doing to you, lead me to the nursing field.
2. What was your path to your current job?
I’ve been with Riverside Hospital for 21 years now, and have had multiple roles. I started as a RN, went on to be a stroke coordinator, orthopedic telemedicine, and then one day the CMO asked me if I would start and grow telehealth, and here I am.
3. What are your basic roles and responsibilities?
There are so many! The biggest ones are probably just overviewing the telehealth development, planning the budget, overviewing day to day things, and making sure things are moving progressively with today’s technologies and circumstances.
4. What has been your favorite, or most rewarding part of your job?
It is certainly never, ever boring. My most rewarding part is probably watching the Telehealth operation grow, and knowing that I am making a difference with what is going on in the health field. This is allowing me to bring care to people in new ways – an example being, we have these systems (I call them robots) that can stay in patients’ homes and take their vitals, connect patients to doctors via zoom, and much more. It’s amazing to see how much the health field has grown with technology/
5. What has been the most surprising aspect of your career?
How many avenues there is to take in the health field! I started as a RN and now I’m not doing RN stuff, but a whole other thing, inside the same building I started in. The number of different avenues and paths you can take in the nursing field, especially in todays age, is endless and amazing to watch grow.
6. What has been the most challenging aspect of your career?
That although it is awesome to see yourself go from one part of the nursing field to another part, change is hard! You really have to adapt to all of these new changes and rules, especially in the time of COVID19. You have to look at new ways to do things all the time.
7. What advice do you have for anyone going into the Health field?
It’s long hours and hard work, especially at first, but it is such a rewarding career. Stick with it! The biggest piece of advice I’d say would be to not go into your first day as a RN thinking you know everything under the sun, there is always going to be something you don’t know and that’s okay!