Health and Fitness : Virginia Gay Hospital’s Sam Jirak receives 2020 All Star Award

Congratulations to Virginia Gay Hospital's Sam Jirak, ARNP for receiving a 2020 All Star Award!

The All Star Award is in conjunction with the ICR Iowa Sector Board Partnerships and Kirkwood Community College working to raise awareness of career opportunities and workforce development in the ICR seven-county region (Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Linn and Washington counties).

Sam began her career with Virginia Gay Hospital in 2018 developing a new behavioral health program at the Vinton Family Medical Clinic. She set out establishing protocols, patient schedules, and mentoring relationships. Sam overcame many challenges throughout this process. One concern was how to merge two different practices in one environment.

Sam approached this situation by creating one welcoming environment but allowing for technical differences in both types of service. Sam states "For education, I job shadowed a nurse my senior year of high school, and then I went to University of Iowa's College of Nursing. After graduating with my bachelors, I worked in the PICU and also pursued graduate school. I finished up my doctorate in nursing practice (DNP), and got my current role at Virginia Gay."

Please join all of us at Virginia Gay Hospital in congratulating her on this accomplishment!

To see a digital copy of the magazine: http://bit.ly/ICRAllStars2020

To explore health career opportunities: https://explore-healthcare.org/