Nurse Appreciation Week – Tamera Dubuque, RN

The word nurse is defined by Webster as ‘a person trained for the sick or infirm, especially in a hospital’. While that may define, what nurses do, it does not explain who they are. Nurses are your friend, there to hold your hand. Nurses are your parent, there to assure you that all will be okay. Nurses are a companion, there to listen and fulfill even the smallest requests. Nurses fill the role of any person you need, at the very instant when you are at the greatest and worst moments of life. So, during Nurse Appreciation Week, we would like to take a moment to honor those who are there for us, our nurses here in the Upper Valley.

Meet Tamera Dubuque, RN
Lebanon, NH

Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital
Geriatric Case Manager in the Primary Care Clinic

Why did you become a nurse?

About 10 years ago I was very unhappy with my job.  My husband took me out to dinner one night to try and cheer me up, and out of the blue asked if I had ever thought of becoming a nurse.  It was like he was reading my mind because I had been researching the best way to do just that!  Becoming a nurse is something I said I would do when I was 7 years old after being in the hospitalized after a car accident.  At that age I was scared staying in the hospital by myself, but my nurse made all the difference.  I remember thinking I wanted to be able to help people in that same way one day.  So after starting my family and trying a couple of other careers, I decided it was time to go back to school and become a nurse.  I was blessed to have the support of my family, who allowed me to work crazy shifts as an LNA while going to school.  It wasn’t always easy, but becoming a nurse has been one of the best decisions of my life.

What is the best part of your job?

I love a lot of things about my job!  But the best part of my job is when I see that my clinical/professional knowledge has benefited my patient’s by helping them achieve the best outcome and/or their desired outcome.  I also really enjoy working at a small community hospital that supports the community I live in.

What is the most heartwarming/uplifting story you have from being a nurse?

There are so many wonderful people in this community I have had the privilege of taking care of it is hard to think of one story.  I often find that my personal and professional worlds collide working in such a small community; especially a community in which my husband was raised in.  I just know that I always learn something from each patient experience, and I hope that I am giving them the same in return.