For Keith McCray, an attendant with St. Charles Bend’s Environmental Services team, the fulfillment he finds in his job comes not from his day-to-day tasks, but from the people he meets along the way.

“This is the best place I’ve ever worked, because I get to go into patient rooms and clean their rooms and talk with them,” he said.

“And they’re having a bad day, man. They’re in the hospital,” McCray continued. “So to bring them a little joy and a little conversation is fantastic to me. I wish I’d known about this job when I was 21 years old, because I would’ve been doing it all along.”

McCray brings to those patient rooms a sense of perspective and empathy that not everyone can provide. A few years ago, he was working at a national home improvement retailer when he fell off a truck and suffered a traumatic brain injury.

“I was in the hospital for a week and off work for two months, trying to relearn how to talk correctly and walk correctly,” he said. “So for me, especially when I’m working on the third floor (home to Bend’s Ortho/Neuro unit) and I’m meeting patients with head injuries, I feel like I know what they’re going through.”

Among other duties, McCray’s job is to empty the trash cans, change soiled linens and mop floors. But like many of St. Charles' EVS workers, he also gives patients a chance to talk with a non-clinical caregiver – someone who isn’t in the room to discuss test results or deliver potentially worrisome news.

“We were looking for something for Keith that would fit with his personality, and he always wanted to be able to connect with people,” said his wife of 26 years, Kelly. “He’s a chatty, outgoing guy, and he felt like he didn’t matter at his previous job. He feels like he matters here.”

A chance encounter brought McCray to St. Charles. In late 2021, when Kelly’s mother was in the hospital for surgery, she started talking to the guy who cleaned the room. Recognizing that working in the hospital would give her husband the kind of people- and service-driven work he needed, she encouraged him to apply for a job.

He was hired shortly after his interview.

“Moving 425-pound refrigerators starts to wear on your body after seven years,” McCray said. “So I gave my two-week notice and came to the hospital. It’s the best place I’ve ever worked.”

Before he worked at the home improvement retailer, McCray was a mechanic for more than 30 years.

“I was the kind of guy that I could pull your transmission out, take it apart and fix it, put it back together, and you're good for another 200,000 miles, but I couldn’t do that now to save my life,” he said with a laugh.

“But now, I wake up every morning and I’m excited to go to work,” McCray said. “I get to help people when they need it most. I get to work with a wonderful team of nurses and everyone else. I get to work in a positive environment where I have the support I need. And I like being a part of that.”

Lucy Lawrence was in school to become a Medical Assistant when she first worked at St. Charles' La Pine Family Care clinic as part of a practicum rotation. She quickly came to love the team, culture and patients of La Pine, as well as the rewarding experience of serving a rural community. When a job opening came up after graduation, she leapt at the opportunity.

“I knew that La Pine was going to be such a fantastic fit for me, and I loved working for St. Charles when I was a student, so I couldn’t say no,” said Lawrence. “I really do have the best team. The culture in La Pine is something special. We are very closely knit, and everyone is a team player. We have so much fun with each other and I look forward to seeing them every day. We are all very driven by the work that we are doing, and we love what we do.”

Lawrence also spends part of her time as an assistant instructor at Central Oregon Community College, teaching clinical skills to St. Charles Medical Assistant cohorts, a program that pays for tuition in exchange for employment within the health system. She has always enjoyed teaching and she loves being on the other side and being able to pass on the knowledge she has gained working in the field.

“It’s so rewarding to see the students' progression, from being super nervous on the first day of labs, when they’re just learning how to properly wash their hands," Lawrence said, "all the way to the very end when they graduate and are doing these really complex clinical skills, and they are confident and ready to go into the field.”

Though she loves her career as a Medical Assistant, her goal has always been to learn as much as she can about medicine and have the skill set to make the greatest impact possible. With that in mind, she will be starting medical school at OHSU this fall to become a physician.

Along with an appreciation for her team, seeing the difference that the La Pine clinic makes in the health of the community is the most rewarding part of her job, she said. For many of Lawrence’s patients, regular access to health care has been limited due to geographic location or financial limitations, and chronic health conditions are common.

“A person’s health impacts every aspect of their life,” she said. “Poor health limits what you’re able to do, so by helping people become healthier we are positively impacting every part of their life and their ability to do what they want to do, from participating in their community to earning a living and being able to be there for their families.”

Regina Forsi was training with the registration team at St. Charles Cancer Center when she got confirmation that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

“A patient came up and told us, ‘You guys make this so much easier for people by bringing smiles and love and fun to the building,’” said Forsi, a scheduling specialist. “I immediately felt welcome and like I was making a difference. It was my second full week here and the place already touched my heart.”

It wasn’t the first time. In 2020, Forsi was 25 years old and working at a local vision clinic when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and sent to the Cancer Center for treatment.

“I really loved the nurses and everyone who took care of me,” she said.

The treatments Forsi received were effective, and by the spring of 2021, doctors could find no evidence of cancer in her body. Meanwhile, at her job, she found herself increasingly interested in the administrative side of health care and decided she wanted to pursue that as a career.

“My manager at the vision clinic really helped me learn more about insurance and billing,” she said. “And then this job at St. Charles popped up and I thought, ‘I know the back end pretty well. This is an opportunity to get to know the front end as well, and with (cancer patients) I feel like I could connect with.”

Forsi got the job, of course, and she’s ecstatic to be working in the Cancer Center.

“I always joked I’d come back,” she said. “Now that I’m here, I already know where all the candy drawers are.”

Now, Forsi is studying health information management at Central Oregon Community College and relishing the opportunity to take care of people in a place where she once received such great care.

“Honestly, it’s about the patients for me,” she said. “Patient care is something that I really love, and I just feel so fortunate and excited to be part of the team.”

"It’s a progressive organization as far as change. There’s always change going on, and that has been bittersweet. But I will always love St. Charles. I’m loyal to St. Charles, because we’re all on the same team here, trying to do the same thing, which is making sure the patient gets the best care. It’s a really good place.”

- Karen, a clinical documentation integrity specialist, who celebrated her 40th anniversary with St. Charles last fall. Karen is an RN who worked in the OR for 30 years before moving into her current role, in which she examines various documents and works with providers to ensure the clinical records of inpatients are clear, allowing coders to accurately code diagnoses. "One of my goals is for the patient's record to accurately reflect their severity of illness," she said. Karen is pictured with her dog, Moose, who brings her a lot of joy. 

“Getting this job off the Confederate Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation was out of my comfort zone and a little intimidating.

Being young and only knowing the Reservation (Rez) and thinking there's nothing for me off the Rez, and the feeling like I wasn't good enough or I didn't know enough was kind of my mindset. Any youth or even adult that is in their comfort zone, I encourage them to get out and challenge themselves. Our youth is our future.”

~Maraya (Rya) - Warm Springs, Yakama, Klamath Modoc tribal member and St. Charles Madras caregiver

“There were definitely a lot of people involved in this, and it just feels good knowing that I have such great colleagues to work with who were all willing to go above and beyond to learn what we were doing and understand the goal and help us improve. It’s nice to see that we can come together to make a more efficient process that will benefit the health system and, ultimately, our patients.”

Paulina, a coordinator on the Bend Ortho/Neuro floor who recently collaborated with several groups across the health system – including the Lean Improvement Office, Epic analysts, Wound Care nurses, the OR team, Environmental Services, Clinical Informatics, unit secretaries and more – to improve how the health system manages and tracks the use of rental wound vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) machines. Previously, Paulina was the only caregiver managing and tracking the machines, an extremely manual and time-consuming process. By incorporating Epic technology and working together to improve processes, the team was able to cut Paulina’s management time by half and increase the availability of VACs for patients.

"I think St. Charles has evolved into a big organization compared to what it was 30 years ago, and we've had growing pains a couple of times. But I think right now we've definitely found a way to adapt to our growth. I think we've got nice people here that really enjoy what they're doing, and I I love that."

- Greg, manager of the Biomedical department, which takes care of all 15,000+ pieces of medical equipment used for patient care across the health system. Greg's 30th anniversary with St. Charles is this month.

When Meggen Ditmore enlisted in the U.S. Air Force during her junior year of high school, she already knew what she wanted to do as a career.

“My desire was to have the Air Force train me as a nurse,” said Ditmore, who currently works as a registered nurse in the Family Birthing Center at St. Charles Madras. “But when I took my aptitude test in high school, they said, ‘No, your highest scores are in mechanics. So they tried to pigeonhole me into a mechanical field.”

Ditmore’s uncle, who was in charge of job assignment for new recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, told her it’d be hard to get out of mechanics unless she was willing to delay her enlistment, retake the test and hope for higher health care scores.

Ditmore didn’t want to do that, so instead she did what came naturally: She tackled the challenge in front of her and made the best of the situation.

“I was like, ‘Alright, I won’t do this as a career. I’ll just do it long enough to get my G.I. Bill so I can go through nursing school,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘If I’m going to do this, I have to do the most fun job I possibly can. I have to break some barriers.’ So I decided to become a jet mechanic.”

After graduating high school in Canton, S.D. in 1997, Ditmore became the first active-duty female to enlist in the Air Force as an A-10 jet mechanic. From 1997 to 2000, she was stationed at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and served in Operation Desert Fox, defending the Southern and Northern no-fly zones in Kuwait following the Gulf War.

“I grew up with a single mom who worked three jobs and always told my sister and me, ‘shoot for the stars’ and ‘nothing’s impossible’ and ‘there are no barriers you can’t break,’” Ditmore said. “So I just went full force into my service with the attitude that I was going to do this and I was going to be successful.”

After leaving the military, Ditmore entered health care, first as a CNA in Madras. She then got her LPN license and worked full-time night shift while going to school to become an RN. Over the past 20 years at St. Charles, she has worked in Medical-Surgical, the Emergency Department and the FBC, among other units.

“I’ve been all over,” she said. “In the military, I didn’t want to do something that was too narrow and repetitive. I wanted something more broad – that’s the nursing mind in me. I have to be doing something that involves doing a bunch of different things. That’s when I’m at my best.”

"I feel like I've found my people here in the Lab. I'm very organized, and people in the Lab tend to like things very structured. They like repetition and routine and so it's a really good fit. I was pulled out of the Lab for 10 weeks during COVID to help with Incident Command, and that was a great experience. And, of course, COVID has stretched and grown all of us. But I was so elated to get back to the Lab because I missed my people and I missed what I do on a daily basis. I just felt like I was able to come back home."

- Anna, administrative assistant in the Bend Laboratory, a job that requires her to wear many hats, including coordinator of the monthly blood drives at St. Charles Bend.

"It's so rewarding to see parents meet their infant feeding goals. And I love the challenge of it. It really checks all the boxes for using your brain and using your heart and your compassion and working with patients as they begin their parenting journey. It does everything I need to feel fulfilled in my job. Not to mention ... new moms and dads are just so fun to work with!"

- Greta, registered nurse and lactation consultant, on why she decided to transition from her position as a labor and delivery nurse to lactation consulting about five years ago. Greta works with both inpatients at the Bend Family Birthing Center and NICU and outpatients at the Center for Women's Health in Redmond.