News

Kim Volker is a busy RN on RiverView's Inpatient Unit. She works with patients on the Medical/Surgical/Pediatrics, Obstetrics (OB), and Intensive Care Units. She's credited with staying with her OB patients beyond her shift to see them through their delivery, doing a great job training other nurses, and adding spice to the team. For all of these reasons and more, Kim was recently named RiverView's Employee of the Month for April.

Having worked at RiverView for 19 years, before working on the Inpatient Unit, Volker worked in the Surgical Department as an LPN, where she received on-the-job training to work as a surgical technician. She also worked for eight years in Home Care as a private nurse for an ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) patient.

Volker grew up northeast of Crookston and attended high school in Thief River Falls. She received her LPN from Agassiz School of Practical Nursing, Crookston, and her RN from Northland Community College, Thief River Falls.

She and her husband of nearly 39 years, Jon, live outside of Crookston. They have two children, Matthew and Tracy, married to Chris. She is a proud grandma to Tracy and Chris's two children, Everett (3 ½) and Ingrid (1 ½). "My grandchildren are number one," she reported. Add dogs, Lily and Bullet, and the family is complete. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family ad friends, relaxing in the pool in the summer, watching movies, and binge-watching a variety of series.

"It's a privilege and an honor to be named Employee of the Month," she shared. "There are many of us that have helped in the past months pitching in and picking up extra shifts, being on call, etcetera, to help the department as we train our new staff to specialties and get ourselves to full staff. We have a great bunch of nurses to work with and working with them as a team is an honor. I would like to share that I would not be the employee I am without my fellow co-workers and supervisor!"

The following are some of the comments from nominations made in Volker’s honor:

“Kim is a highly dedicated employee. She personally has stayed at the hospital days/nights many times this past year in order to avoid having to divert OB patients. She has started a shift and mid-shift went to sleep onsite so that she could wake up and cover the night shift with an OB patient. She is reliable to report to her scheduled shifts. She has spent many nights this winter onsite to ensure she is able to report to work the following day. Kim trains in new nurses and in OB she is exceptional in her training. She is thorough in her documentation and brings some spice to our team. I appreciate Kim for all she does for our team. RiverView is blessed to have such a devoted employee.’’

“Kim has been with RVH for a number of years. Kim started in surgery and several years ago graduated with her RN and then moved to the IPU. This spring she has really shown her commitment to IPU, OB and RVH by picking up an endless amount of shifts to ensure OB coverage. Hopefully Kim will get to enjoy the summer a bit more because of all the great precepts she has done.

“Kim was chosen to be a preceptor because she does top notch work. Kim’s documentation is always complete, she is confident in what she knows and she will also be the first person to look up a policy with you, if she is not 100% sure!’’