If just 40 percent of a hospital's front-line caregivers wash their hands before and after entering a patient's room in an effort to thwart the spread of infection, is raising that number to 60 percent reason to give each other a high-five?

And if someone on a transplant surgical team noticed that a patient's healthy left kidney was about to be removed instead of the diseased kidney on the right, should catching such a close call be considered a victory?

The town hall-style meeting for the second and final candidate for the School of Dentistry was held Wednesday night on the campus of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. David Felton, professor of restorative dentistry at West Virginia University School of Dentistry, opened the meeting with an introduction of his family, including his wife who was in attendance, and photos of his children and grandchildren.

It was close on 50 years ago when Frankie Gaines stuck her first patient.

Her training began on July 6, 1965, as a part-timer in a University of Mississippi Medical Center laboratory, “keeping the glassware clean and relieving employees who were taking their vacation,” said Gaines, 77. “That was back when they always used glass for everything.”

Then, her boss asked her to work full time. “I told him I surely would. We saw patients in a clinic in the lab. I did blood pressure and temperatures ... whatever the doctor had ordered.”

But, she'd find herself helping out in a second Medical Center lab in her office where blood was drawn from patients. “I told the lady over that lab, 'I want to stick a patient by myself.' I'd watched her for a long time, and I said, 'I believe I want to do this.' The first time, I got it.”

Today, Gaines is a phlebotomy assistant supervisor in the Adult Hematology lab located at the Jackson Medical Mall. After 50 years and lots of on-the-job training, the Jackson resident said, she still enjoys sticking people and being a vital part of the ebb and flow in the lab.

Gaines “is an absolute pleasure to work with,” said Keith Wilkins, a department manager in clinical laboratory administration. “She helped lay the cornerstones here. She's one of only two people I know who has a four-digit ID number. Everyone else has five digits.”

Gaines started work at UMMC “right around the time when I was born,” Wilkins said. “She is a go-getter person. She does not like people lolly-gagging around. She likes attention to detail, and she's always cleaning.”

UMMC leadership extends its sympathy to the family of Dr. Sharon B. Wyatt, Harriet G. Williamson Professor of Nursing and professor of medicine, in appreciation for her contributions to the academic health science center.

The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff: