Gifted Healthcare Blog

Meet Chris, a dedicated and experienced Emergency Room Nurse on his first travel nursing contract with Gifted Healthcare. With a passion for helping others and diverse experiences working within the healthcare field, Chris has been helping patients in Southern Tennessee but his healthcare experience is not the only thing that pushes Chris to be the nurse he is today.

Read on to hear how Chris became the ER RN he is today.

Why Nursing?

Growing up, Chris watched both of his parents go above and beyond to help others. His mother worked long shifts as a nurse and his father was a first responder, working as an EMT. Seeing his parents prioritize their patients has instilled a work ethic and level of compassion that Chris carries with him to this day.

Early Career

Chris began driving ambulances out of high school at the age of eighteen. It was his first job in the medical field and although he did not work directly on saving patients, he found that passion for the rush of stabilizing a patient in need.

“I was in a rural, small town that had an ambulance service that needed drivers so that is how I got my start in the medical field. Literally just driving an ambulance and here I am,” said Chris Greenlee.  “I eventually spent twelve years as a paramedic before going back to school to become a nurse.”

While in school, Chris was an ER Technician and then began to work on a Critical Care Unit post-graduation where he started off his nursing career.

“I learned a lot while working on the critical care unit and then moved to the ER,” said Chris. “I love to assess the patients walking through the door, problem solve to get them where they need to be as soon as possible.”

A Patient’s Impact

Nurses impact their patients every day, but there are always those patients that stick with nurses. They remind them why they love what they do. For Chris, this patient was a woman that was rushed into his hospital a few years back.

“Years ago, I performed a cardiac thump on a patient. It is not something used as commonly now, but essentially, it’s a thump to a patient’s chest that is having a lethal arrhythmia. Well, I did it to a patient and brought her back twice in the same fifteen minutes,” started Chris.

“The memorable thing about this was that I went to visit her in the unit the next day and she said ‘there is that nice young man that kept hitting me in the chest’. This woman was dying and when she remembered me right away, that truly stuck with me.”

Back Home

Back at home, Chris and his wife are raising seven children together while both working in the medical field. The two met at a hospital in Iowa while she was working as a new nurse and Chris was a paramedic. Since then, the two have been working as nurses alongside each other. His wife has previously been an ER and PICU nurse but is currently working as a school nurse in Des Moines.

“She’s very very good. I’ve learned a lot from her and I’d like to think I have taught her a few things,” said Chris. “She even nominated me for a Nurse Hero award back in 2018 and I was one of ten people honored at Fenway Park on the field. It was a humbling experience”

Read Chris’ Nurse Hero Award here.

The Ideal Nurse

To Chris, empathy is the award-winning quality all nurses must have.

He went on to share, “A previous director had said to me, “Just remember your emergency is not the same as their emergency”, and that has reminded me of the empathy nurses emit daily. Someone could come in with a cut finger and to them, it will most likely feel like the biggest emergency in the world to them and it’s our job to treat it that way too.”

Travel with Gifted

Chris is a Gifted RN bringing his expertise and compassion to patients in need. He embraces the challenges along the way. If you are interested in becoming a travel nurse, connect with a Gifted recruiter today. We’ll help you begin your next career move.