Front and Center: Carolyn Trudeau

Published on Monday, May 6, 2024

By: Danny Barrett Jr., dlbarrett@umc.edu

Photos By: Melanie Thortis

Taking care of the hands who take care of patients every day is Carolyn Trudeau’s best way to sum up her job as an adult administrative house supervisor for the nursing staff at UMMC.

“I tell my nurses they take care of the patients, and I, in turn, take care of them,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau is one of five full-time nursing supervisors for adult inpatient hospitals, Adult Emergency Department and perioperative areas. Each fills a supervisory role for either days, evenings or nights and is responsible for scheduling appropriate staff and operations for adult acute care and critical care at Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants.

“My moving into this position allows us to have a supervisor in the building 24 hours, whereas there was a gap before when there wasn’t anyone here in the daytime. It’s helped communication be more cohesive. UMMC is a huge place, where things are constantly moving and changing. So, when there’s a need to move staff or decide where a patient should go, it’s easier for one person who knows what staffing and acuity looks like in the whole hospital to make those decisions instead of individual managers.”

Supervisors begin a shift by looking at the hospital census, the staffing, what’s coming into the ED and OR what the anticipated discharges could be. They also respond to all emergency calls involving patients and staff needs, which requires the kind of versatility and institutional knowledge Trudeau brings to the job after 16 years at UMMC.

“In order to be a successful supervisor, you have to be able to critically think while always being at least two steps ahead,” said Alice Chaney Herndon, director of nursing adult services and supervisor to Trudeau and her fellow house supervisors. “You have to have a plan A, plan B and sometimes a plan C in order to keep the UMMC train on the tracks.”

Last summer, Trudeau helped coordinate a mattress conversion of inpatient units in the adult hospital and at Wiser, which led to her being tapped to do the same for tagging equipment throughout University Hospital.

“Not only did she actively participate, but she also made sure that there was effective communication across the hospital departments,” Herndon said, adding team members on both endeavors refer to Trudeau as a “Swiss army knife” of sorts for her versatility. “I could give a myriad of stories of Carolyn’s patient care and what she does on a daily basis, but they are too numerous to mention and impossible to capture in one setting.”

Trudeau started working at UMMC in January 2008 as a staff nurse in surgical ICU, then was a charge nurse for years before assuming a supervisory role on the night shift for five years before moving to days in January 2023. She earned a BSN from Mississippi College and lives in Clinton with her husband and son, Oliver, 4, and daughters Aeryn, 18, and Georgi, 17. 

She supervised the night shift at the height of the pandemic, a blur in time for any nurse who worked the floor – but especially so for a mom-to-be.

“I gave birth to my son in May 2020, while I was supervising. My husband, Stephen Butts, since retired, was a bedside critical care nurse. Workwise, it was a time of constantly juggling where the patients needed to go, who was coming in and going out, how I was going to arrange my staff so they could safely take care of those patients. And overall, it was exhausting for everyone.”

The pace of the job has slowed down since then, but only to a certain degree. Each day on shift can bring a “rapid response” call for a patient suddenly in need of attention.

“A patient could’ve had a decrease in their mental status, or difficulty breathing, or a cardiac dysrhythmia or unstable vital signs,” she said. “In a rapid response, staff is asking for a group of critical care nurses and physicians to evaluate the patient to see if they can be treated on the floor or moved to critical care. Where I come in is to see where we can feasibly put them.

“We’re a very patient-centered facility, so my job is to foster an environment where nurses can perform at their best.”