Humanitarian of the Year

Greenview employee recognized with Frist award

By ALYSSA HARVEY, The Daily News
April 24, 2009 
 
When Ann Budde found out she was a winner of Greenview Regional Hospital’s Frist Humanitarian of the Year Awards this year, she was surprised.

“I was very flattered and humbled,” she said. “I knew I’d been nominated, but I didn’t know who the winners were.”

Budde, director of food and nutrition services at Greenview, was selected as a Frist Award winner along with nine-year Greenwood volunteer Maryanne Ringo and local ophthalmologist Dr. Edmund Wilkins.

The awards recognize an employee, a volunteer and a physician at each Hospital Corp. of America facility who demonstrate extraordinary concern for the welfare and happiness of patients and their community. The awards were named in honor of the humanitarian spirit and philanthropic work of the late Dr. Thomas F. Frist Sr., a co-founder of Hospital Corp. of America, Greenview’s parent company.

“The award is more for community service,” said Jarrett Millsaps, chief operating officer and Greenview and Budde’s supervisor. “Dr. Frist was a big believer in that.”

Budde was one of nine nominated for the employee award this year, Millsaps said.

“Anytime we have some sort of function, she’s involved. She’s always a visible face. Everybody knows her,” he said. “Ann always puts forward a positive image. She does an extraordinary job. She has a can-do attitude. She was selected by her peers.”

Greenview clinical dietitian Sue Gulley agreed that Budde deserves the award. She remembers when Budde first came to Greenview.

“I hired Ann when she came here. I was food service director,” she said. “She had just finished her internship in Texas.”

Gulley said because the kitchen staff is sometimes understaffed, Budde rolls up her sleeves to help cover positions of absent workers.

“I’ve watched her work 30 days straight, and she’s never complained,” she said. “She never knows what she has to cover.”

Budde, who has worked at Greenview for 10 years, oversees kitchen operations at the hospital. Her tasks include food preparation for patients, running the cafeteria, some in-house catering and feeding doctors. She is also chairwoman of the hospital’s activities committee, which plans different events for employees throughout the year.

When she started school at Western Kentucky University, she thought she wanted to become a meteorologist. Then she began to think about culinary school, but it was too expensive.

“I went to the closest thing,” she said. “That was nutrition and dietetics.”

Budde earned a bachelor’s degree in dietetics from Western and then went on to do an internship at Texas A&M University. After her internship, her mother saw an advertisement for an assistant food nutrition services director at Greenview. She applied for and got the job and worked there for two years before going to Mississippi.

“The (chief executive officer) who was here was going to Mississippi and wanted me to run the food services department there,” she said. “It never felt like home.”

Meanwhile, Greenview was going through some restructuring and Budde received a call asking if she wanted to return.

“My husband and I came back,” she said.

Besides her job at Greenview, Budde keeps busy at Western. She teaches a gourmet foods class and is pursuing her master’s degree in adult education. She is using the skills she is learning to create a program to help Greenview’s nursing staff get a better understanding about how food services and nutrition work.

“I want them to know what’s allowed and what’s not allowed on a hospital diet,” she said.

Two of her continuous goals for the future are increasing patient satisfaction and being a good supervisor to her staff.

“I want to make an environment that they’re happy in,” she said. “I have an excellent staff. The cooking staff is great. We get praise all the time. It’s all them.”