Vern McKinney, speaker, is flanked by Co-Pres. Christy Manning and Tiffany Jones, program sponsor

 

Exceptional Community Hospital, Prescott's newest state-of-the-art hospital and 24/7 emergency room, recently celebrated its first anniversary of service to our community.  Passing it on Highway 69, across from Costco, many of our members have been wondering what kind of hospital this is.  However,  at least one of our members knows from personal experience. Tiffany Jones says, "I was lucky enough to land there when I needed emergency gall bladder surgery, and I was very impressed with the care I received."

 

With Tiffany's help, we were fortunate to have Vern McKinney, the hospital's Chief Nursing Officer, as our speaker last Wednesday, to tell us what this hospital does, and how it operates.  Originally from southern Missouri, Vern married a girl who grew up in Prescott, and it was oinly a matter of time before they and their own family would wind up here in Prescott.  Vern has been in the Quad Cities area since 2013, serving in Emergency Medicine and Leadership. During 10 years of that time he managed the ER for YRMC, before serving for a couple years with Honor Health.  Asked why he chose nursing as a career, he said he was raised in a nursing family that was in the emergency medicine business.

 

McKinney told us the new hospital served 13,000 patients during its first year of operation here in Prescott.  The average wait time in the hospital's ER has been only 19 minutes,  He said that, whihe the hospital does have a helipad, it is used exclusively for transferring patients out of the hospital, who may require a specialized or more intensive levels of care.  Dr. Paul Gilbert is the Hospital Administrator.

 

 

One of the greatest values which Rotarians can gain from their membership in Rotary is to take advantage of the many leadership training and service opportunities which our organization offers.  Over the past several days, Russ Davis, our club 's President-elect, has been in Los Angeles, being trained for his club leadership responsibilities alongside Pres-Elects from several hundred other Rotary clubs in this region.

 

On March 7, at Paradise Valley Community College an annual 1-day Club Leadership Academy will be offered to help train all other club leaders.

 

The good news this year is that this Club Leadership Academy is also going to also be offered on Saturday, March 28, here at Yavapai Community College in Prescott, to make this leadership training accessible to more of our Rotary club leaders in northern Arizona.

 

You have also heard about the Rotary Leadership Institute program and the Rotary District Conference.  Leadership training opportunities do abound in Rotary.  However, unless you sign up and participate in them, they will be opportunities and value lost from your Rotary investment.  Vow to make this year the year you will become more fully invested, and will begin taking advantage of more that Rotary has to offer,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Prescott High School Interact Club included a hands-on community service project during their club meeting last week. They utilized their creativity to make car toys for the local animal shelter and Miss Kitty's cat adoption service.

 

Club President Ceiba Sherman (front row, left end) is pictured above with some of her club members who agreed to display their kitty creations for this photo.