For a few years now, Katie Etzcorn, MSN, FNP-C, RN, ONC, an inpatient floor nurse at the Parkview Ortho Hospital, has been adding colorful sketches to the whiteboard in a high traffic area of the facility. Her most recent artwork is garnering attention for both the eye-catching design and the message it sends to her clinical colleagues. She shares the story behind her contributions and the inspiration for her latest piece.
I don’t consider myself an artist at all. It all started because of a huddle board right outside of the break room facing the nurses station. Our staff, patients and their family members walk by the board quite a bit. Initially, it was a fairly small board that we kept information on, but at some point they upgraded it to a giant whiteboard. By then we’d moved our huddles into the break room so as not to disturb any patients or guests. There wasn’t enough information to cover the space, so a woman we worked with at the time, Abby, would doodle cartoon characters on it. When Abby left, no one knew who would take over the artwork.
The first thing I drew was a turtle sipping on lemonade on the beach. It was the middle of summer and I thought it was a nice complement to the information we had posted on the board. Eventually, I drew the trees in autumn. And I’ve been doing it ever since.
Inspiration
I’d never taken any art classes, other than in middle school. I have a lot of artists in my family, but I was always into music and did show choir. I’ve just picked things up and do it for fun. I find things on Pinterest that I think are cool or would be fun for our patients and then I doodle them on the board. I don’t think about it like an artist does, I’m sure.
I try to do something new every couple of months, usually a seasonal image. I change it the most during Christmas. I’ve been in school, have a 3 and 5-year-old at home and only work PRN, so it can be difficult to find enough time.
The reward
When people react, it’s really fun and exciting for me. Our hospital is connected to the main hospital, so we get people who cross over the bridge and check it out. Some from other units walk over just to see the latest drawing on the board!
The nurse in the mask
This last drawing is one of my favorites. The piece definitely sparks a little more emotion than others and is more fitting to the current climate. I always like to put up motivational words or images and remind our staff and patients that today might be tough, but tomorrow will be better.
The inspiration for the nurse in the mask came from one of my usual Pinterest searches. I found this artwork where people were creating geometric faces. I thought it would be really cool if I could also create a mask in the same style. I first drew a woman and then added the mask. Then I added the lines to create the geometric look. I did the drawing in two sessions, each around six hours. I’d run out of time or get to the point where my arms hurt and decide to come back later.
The last part I did was draw the words around her. I looked online for different fonts and scripts that I liked. As I was brainstorming the specific words, I spoke with my mom, Gail Altekruse, who also works at Parkview. “It’s dark,” she said. “Mom, we’re in a pandemic,” I responded.
Even those who are not dealing with patients directly are still feeling the effects of this virus. It’s not just our brothers and sisters in the healthcare world taking care of super sick people, with not enough staff. It also hits other floors when it comes to budget and restrictions we need to accommodate for the sake of safety. This pandemic has completely changed the culture and mindset. Even on our unit, where we don’t care for COVID-19 patients, people are just tired. We feel like every day we have to find something to keep us going and keep us positive. Otherwise, the effects of this virus will weigh us down.
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Sharing the message
While I was finishing up the words, a woman I work with came up and said, “This is your best one yet. You have to put it on social media.” So I did, because she asked me to. In just a day it had more than 100 Likes! It was being shared by people I went to nursing school with in Indianapolis.
My hope with this drawing is to bring some light by surrounding her with empowering words. These are words that I believe describe people who work in healthcare. They are the words related to hope and keeping faith and remembering that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are all here for a purpose. I wanted to remind people about their passion for what they do.
I hope people see it how I wanted it to be portrayed; as a testament to where we are in healthcare right now. We are exhausted, fatigued, working ourselves to the bone. But there is color around us. Brightness. Hope.
