Dedicated to improving patient care, Advanced Practice Nurse Shelly Kuhns is excited to join the Hospitalist team at Sarah Bush Lincoln. Hospitalists are providers who have advanced training and experience in the special medical care needed by people during a hospital stay.
Kuhns comes to Sarah Bush Lincoln after caring for people on the hospitalist team at Carle Hospital in Urbana for the past two years. With more than 20 years experience in nursing, she worked for several years as a trauma nurse and served as a nursing instructor at Rend Lake College, McKendree University and Millikin University.
Living on a farm in Altamont, Kuhns looks forward to caring for people closer to home. She believes in the African philosophy of Ubuntu meaning “humanity to others.” It also means “I am what I am because of who we all are,” and emphasizes traits such a respect, caring, compassion, understanding, kindness, sharing and wisdom. “I’m 100 percent a team healthcare provider,” she said, stressing the importance of working together with other medical staff members and specialists to provide the best possible care.
Kuhns was drawn to the field of healthcare at the young age of six, when her parents were severly injured in a traumatic car accident. Bonding with several of the nurses providing care, “I was fascinated by healthcare after that and what you can do to help people,” she said. While both her parents survived after lengthy hospital stays, they both faced many obstacles in the years that followed.
“There are so many things in life that we don’t pick, they pick us,” Kuhns said of her decision to become a nurse. She earned an associate’s degree in nursing from Kaskaskia College in 1992 and cared for people as a trauma nurse before earning a bachelors degree in nursing from McKendree College in 2006. She continued her studies while serving as a nursing instructor and earned her advanced practice nursing degree from Rush University in Chicago in August 2009. She is currently working on her doctorate in nursing.
The hospitalists’ office is located on the ground floor of the Health Center. For more information, call the Hospitalist office at (217) 238- or 348-HEAL (4325).