The Wonderful History of Bev Crum: Forty years of compassion at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: CORPORATE 100 SPECILA SECTION / EMPLOYEE PROFILE

My interview with Bev Crum, ER nurse manager for the Emergency Department at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center, was absolutely delightful. It is clear, from even the short conversation that we had, that she is an intelligent, highly qualified, and deeply compassionate woman who has dedicated her career to caring for patients, peers, and her community.

PeaceHealth's history stretches back in Ketchikan to 1923, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace opened the Little Flower Hospital. Today PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center employs 500 people, 80 percent of whom are women. The center's number of employees qualified the organization for our 2019 Corporate 100 list, and because of the hospital's rich history, we thought it was the perfect candidate to connect Alaska Business with an employee with an equally rich history. Enter Crum, who has worked at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center for more than forty years.

She is originally from Ohio and moved to Ketchikan in 1976, so she's now lived more of her life in Alaska than elsewhere. While in Ohio, "I had a friend that was in Ketchikan doing some seasonal work. And when I heard that person talking about Ketchikan--the mountains, the water, it's laid-back, how nice the community was--was intrigued." She arrived in Ketchikan via the Alaska Marine Highway on Seward's Day.

"It was kind of interesting coming in on Seward's Day because you couldn't do anything. I had broken my glasses on the ferry and needed a screw put on them, but nothing was open. At the time it just didn't make sense to me, but now that I've lived here all these years, I do understand how important those days are."

Crum can't point to anything specific that led her to a career in healthcare; rather, she's always just kind of known she was heading that direction. "Back when I was growing up, you either wanted to be a nurse or a teacher--there really weren't that many opportunities for women back then." Before heading to Ketchikan, she had worked for three years in pediatrics at an Ohio hospital after earning her nursing degree.

The themes of her career are mentoring and growth. She has been licensed as an EMT and taught skills and proctored exams in that field; she was on the Ketchikan Emergency Medical Services Board, which led her to join the Southeast Region EMS board; in the 1980s she became a CEN, or certified emergency nurse; she's been an instructor for ACLS, PALS, TNCC, ENPC; and she's participated in sexual assault...