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"The key to this new managed care product is a system designed to
drive awareness on the part of the community physician that a particular
patient's problem could be cancer, even before a surgical biopsy or some
other procedure is performed," says Dr. Charles M. Balch, M. D. Anderson's
executive vice president for health affairs.
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For her work and commitment since establishing that program in 1991, Judkins has been named the 1996 recipient of the Ethel Fleming Arceneaux Outstanding Nurse-Oncologist Award. She is the 20th recipient of the Brown Foundation award.
Established by the Brown Foundation, Inc., in 1982, the Ethel Fleming Arceneaux Award recognizes nursing excellence at M. D. Anderson and carries with it a $10,000 prize. It is named in memory of the former director of nursing for shift services, whose 37 years of service to the institution reflected her commitment to exemplary patient care.
The selection process begins with peer nomination; a selection committee narrows the field of prospects to five finalists.
"Alice Judkins is one of the most compassionate, hands-on nurses I've ever had the pleasure to work with," says Dr. S. Eva Singletary, chief of breast surgery and head of the Brown Foundation award selection committee. "She provides her patients with her undivided attention, understanding their concerns and explaining their options. She knows that a well-informed patient is one who is more comfortable with her treatment options."
"The patients I work with are the true heroes," Judkins says. "They help me put my life in perspective and give meaning to my life. My hope at the end of each day is that I have made as much of an impact in their lives as they have in mine."
"Every woman I come in contact with gives something to me. And that affects what I do with the next woman I see," Judkins says. "It is very gratifying, very satisfying to be able to work one-on-one with these women who have had cancer and who require a lifetime of surveillance."
Judkins says the nurse-patient environment allows the women "to be very open, to relax a little more and be willing to share their perspectives of being a cancer patient."
Judkins has both master's and bachelor degrees in health care administration from Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas. She received her diploma in nursing in 1960 from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and began her career at M. D. Anderson in 1976 in the hospital's Screening and Detection Program for Nurses.
After her run, Thommye Stewart embraces
Carol Shoppell of volunteer services.
Both women ran the nearly kilometer-long stretch to the cheers and shouts of encouragement from more than 50 friends, family and supporters. Flawn ran her portion of the relay in Memorial Park; Stewart ran earlier along the Hempstead Road in West Houston.
Tyrrell Flawn, director of volunteer
services, holds aloft her torch on her relay run through Memorial
Park.
"It was just exhilarating," Flawn says. "I felt an enormous surge of energy from the people who were there running with me, cheering. I remember you feel like you were floating."
"I was just having so much fun, I was next to tears," Stewart says of her run. "It was the best of the best feeling you can ever have. I am completely overwhelmed."
In a spontaneous show of support, close friend and volunteer service staff member Carol Shoppell collected the $275 in cash from her "fan club," which included M. D. Anderson friends, church companions and Society of Petroleum Engineers members. The money was used to purchase the custom-made three-pound, 32-inch torch as a keepsake for Stewart.
At the end of their respective run, both women lent their torches to audience members, who proudly posed for photographs Ñ and a few hugs.