Employee of the year

Stephanie Ruskell  

Physical therapist Stephanie Ruskell is fascinated by wounds. Through her daily activities of cleaning and dressing wounds, she becomes an agent in the process of healing.
"It's so important to work with a wound and to stimulate circulation, which helps stimulate the growth of new tissue," she says. "It's an intriguing process. I'm not squeamish. I was raised with three brothers, so I saw a lot of wounds."

Ruskell always knew she wanted to work in the medical fi eld, but since she shies away from needles, she imagined it wouldn't be nursing. She actually credits her brother for her decision to go into physical therapy.

She knows he didn't mean to drop her that day he was using her as a barbell; she just kind of slipped out of his grasp and tore the cartilage in her knee upon landing. During her physical therapy she thought, "This is it. I can do this."

Having already achieved a bachelor's degree in health sciences from Fresno State University, she went on to complete her physical therapy certifi cation, then went to work forNatividad Medical Center in Salinas for 11 years, serving as director of physical therapy. A little more than 17 years ago, she came to work as a physical therapist - later becoming a certifi ed wound specialist and senior acute care therapist - for Community Hospital, where she has been named the 2005 Employee of the Year.

"What counts in the end," says Alain Claudel, director of Rehabilitation Services at Community Hospital, "is the changed lives of the patients she has so expertly treated. The smiles of the children when their burns are healed. The hope she has given toall the patients who were told they were going to have their foot or leg removed. The energy she has infused in the lives of amputees. Those are the things that count forever."

Although she spent years dividing her time between acute care and wound care, Ruskell has focused primarily on wound care since 2003.

"There has been a huge increase in the number of diffi cult wounds," she says, "because of the dramatic increase in diabetes, because the effects of smoking are creeping up, and because people are living longer, to a point where they become wounded more easily. Wound care is all I do now, except on the weekends when I get back into acute care and inpatient physical therapy."

Ruskell also looks after her uncle, who lives in a nearby care facility where he navigates his days without short-term memory.

"When my picture was in the paper for Employee of the Year," she says, "I showed it to my uncle every day. And each time, he got all excited and said, 'This is wonderful. Why didn't you tell me?' It is a wonderful honor."