|
As part of Duke Appreciation, Duke pays special tribute to faculty and staff celebrating career service
milestones of 10 years or more at the Night of Duke Stars, an invitation-only event. There are more
than 2,000 employees celebrating a special milestone this year, including two people who have worked
at Duke for 50 years. The following are examples from those celebrating this year of the many roles
and contributions that help make Duke the special place it is today. Additional examples
can be found online.
"This is a place where you can always find your niche because it's so big. I'm just glad I've been a part of this system."
Julia Alliger
The way Duke has followed Julia Alliger and her nursing career may have led her to think she had a unique shadow. "I've been a part of the Duke system in one way or another since 1980," Alliger said. "This is a place where you can always find your niche because it's so big. I'm just glad I've been a part of this system. Even when I've tried to get away, somehow I come back." In 1980, Alliger began working part-time in the emergency department at Duke University Hospital. She left two years later for a full-time position in the emergency department at Durham Regional Hospital, which became part of the Duke University Health System in 1998. However, Alliger had moved on earlier, in 1992, to apply her nursing skills in hospice and infusion care, where medication is administered in a patient's home. She worked for a couple of organizations, which were combined with other groups in 2002 to become part of what is now Duke HomeCare and Hospice. "Every entity I've worked with has ended up a part of the Duke system," Alliger said. Currently, Alliger is a staff nurse at the Hillsborough Inpatient Care Facility, its windows overlooking rolling hills and serene countryside. Today, the expansive Duke system offers nurses like Alliger many career opportunities, from pre-natal to hospice care to everything in between. For 30 years, Alliger has helped care for the body as a nurse, and recently she took advantage of Duke's educational opportunities to pursue a second career in the ministry to care for the soul, too. In 1999, she began working toward a master's in divinity from Duke Divinity School. Alliger said she could not have done it without tuition assistance from Duke and flexible work hours. "For me, nursing and ministry were a natural overlap because both are about providing care," said Alliger, who has served as pastor of Eno United Methodist Church in Hillsborough since 2004. Alliger said she applies what she's learned as a nurse to her ministry and what she's learned as a pastor to her nursing. "Nursing is very much about healing, and it has always had a spiritual aspect for me," she said. "I've always been interested in healing more than people's bodies, but also their souls." When she's not tending to her congregation, Alliger said she enjoys the peaceful surroundings of the hospice, where she provides total care to patients who are near the end of their lives, including cooking and cleaning for them. "We focus on making the patients as comfortable as possible and providing them with
the best quality of life possible," Alliger said. "People think it's very depressing work, but
it's not.We get to witness wonderful love and reconciliations between patients and their
families.When people are in crisis or dying, there's nothing superficial — it gets down to
what's really important."
|
