VA nurses lead way in patient care
This week (May 6-12), the W.G. (Bill) Hefner VA Medical Center honors the dedicated men and women we in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) consider to be the compassionate backbone of the veterans’ health care system — nurses.
The theme of National Nurses Week 2014 is “Nurses Leading the Way,” and no one puts more passion into the health care profession than VA nurses. VA is the nation’s largest single employer of nurses, and VA nurses lead their profession in education and training, clinical responsibility and research. But their passion comes from VA’s mission — caring for veterans.
VA nurses are integral and equal members of our health care team of professionals. No health care professional is closer to the veterans we care for than a VA nurse. Veterans and families rely on them for their compassion, and the VA relies on them for setting the highest clinical care standards. That reliance is well placed. VA’s recognition as a leader in health care, patient safety and research is due in large part to nurses.
I am deeply proud to be associated with the nurses who serve veterans at the W.G. (Bill) Hefner VA Medical Center and of all of our nation’s 3.1 million registered nurses who work tirelessly to keep us well and save lives around the clock every day.
— Garett Schreier
Salisbury
Schreier is associate director for Patient Care Services and executive nurse at the Bill Hefner V.A. Medical Center.

Staff media centers
It was just brought to my attention that there is to be a discussion and possibly a decision to do away with media assistants in elementary, middle and high schools in the Rowan-Salisbury school district. I am appalled at this. I was a media assistant for 31 years and subbed for the past 10 years. I know first hand how valuable media assistants are to the schools.
I encourage the school board if you have not been to a media center and observed what all the media assistants do, then I suggest you do so before you vote on this issue.
I realize that times have changed in the media center with technology being the main idea for our schools, but students still need to be able to go to their media center where there are books for them to do research and also books to read.
You might have as many as three classes in your media center and it takes the classroom teacher, the media specialist and the media assistant to assist these students with research and/or computer problems.
Another example is you have a student who needs attention from the media specialist, someone needs laminating done, copies made, books being checked in and out, shelving done. Who is going to do this?
If the media specialist is called out of the media center during the day to assist teachers in their classroom, has to go to a classroom to do a presentation, or even be out for a workshop or heaven forbid they are out sick, who will be in charge of the media center? You cannot leave students in the media center unsupervised for safety reasons among many other reasons that I dealt with when I was a media assistant
I also hope that parents of students will get behind this decision not to eliminate these positions. Contact your school board members!
— Marilyn Fisher
Salisbury