CNO Spotlight: Regenia Stull

Meet Regenia Stull, Liberty Hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer

Regenia brings more than 20 years of nursing leadership experience to Liberty Hospital and has coined the phrase “a nurse to nurses.”  Throughout her career, Regenia has traveled the world picking up key insights that have led her journey into leadership.  After studying at West Viriginia and getting married, her husband in active duty allowed them the opportunity to see many different cities, patient demographics, and experiences.  Regenia has been everywhere from South Dakota, Hawaii, Louisiana, and now resides in Missouri.  Along the way, she has worked as an OB tech, working with women and children’s high-risk pediatrics, has done consulting work for Missouri Hospital Association (MHA), has served as a legal nurse consultant, and in management and executive leadership.  Regenia has recently received honors as a Top 50 Chief Nursing Officer 2024 by Woman We Admire.

Q: Explain why workplace culture is one of your pillars of nursing leadership?

A: “Throughout my career, I faced severe bullying,” Stull recounts.  “I had leadership tell me that my confidence was too much, trying to knock down my desire to learn more.”  Thankfully, her tenacity to make a culture change in healthcare has been her calling card.  “Geographically, many hospitals in the Kansas City market are in such proximity that culture matters so much in employee retention, patient satisfaction, and who Liberty Hospital is to the community,” explained Stull.  “Some Hospitals are known for specialties, others for cutting-edge technology, and others academic work.  Partnering with University of Kansas Health Systems (UKHS), it is clear that they are a world-leader in many of these areas.  Liberty Hospital is not a ‘small community hospital.’  Being community-based just means we focus on recruitment efforts and culture differently, but Liberty Hospital does so much.  For example, we do open heart surgery, brain surgery, we deliver babies and have a special care nursery for babies down to 32 weeks of gestation.  We do really great things here, it’s important to get the word out there,” Stull proudly commented.  “One thing we can always control about culture is what our staff and patients feel in our building,” Stull noted.

Regenia understood the importance of culture work after a personal experience found her in the eyes of a patient.  “After my father passed away, I was in a fog for a while.  It is a dark place to lose someone you love.  When I came back to work, I had to remember to wear a different face in presenting myself,” Stull remembered.  “I was at the coffee shop inside the Hospital I worked at and remember seeing a woman looking blankly in the same fogged haze that I had myself felt in grief.  I decided to tap her on the shoulder and asked her, ‘is there anything I can do to make this moment better for you?’ and received the fiercest, longest hug I have ever received.”  Stull utilizes empathy and human connection as a large piece of culture work; “culture is a feeling,” she remarked.

Q: From a patient perspective, what do you want the general public to know about challenges and opportunities nurses face today?

A: “One thing that is important to understand,” said Stull, “is that in a matter-of-fact way, nurses join the profession because they want to help people.”  Regenia explained that there are many journeys that can lead someone into nursing.  What makes nursing so unique, is the concept of marrying clinical knowledge with the artful way of explaining it to patients in a caring and effective way that matters the most.  “Of course,” she explained, “there are many different minds in health care that are focused on different specialties; physicians, pharmacists, psychologists, and many more approach patient wellness differently.  It is the nurses that directly interprets the way a patient understands their care and relates it that is so special.”

Q: How has the Foundation helped nurses through its various programs?

A: “The Foundation has helped so many individuals become nurses.  Some of these individuals would not have been nurses if it weren’t for the Foundation’s instrumental work in education scholarships.  Especially through the Stocksdale program, the Foundation working with nursing education to identify opportunities for continuing education is important work,” Stull noted.

“One nurse has the ability to help thousands of people,” Stull explained.  “With our staff ratios, let’s say a nurse serves five patients per day.  Over the course of the year, between family members they talk to and patients they see, multiplies to over 5,000 lives touched.  That’s only one year.  Think about how many people one nurse helps over the course of a career; that is the power of sponsoring nursing education.”

The Foundation is proud of this butterfly effect in health care.  Leare more about the Foundation’s nursing scholarships.

Listen to Regenia’s Podcast: 

The Heart of Health and Science is a special podcast from Liberty Hospital. We bring minds together in an exchange of ideas that help make the world — and our Northland communities — a healthier, happier place.

Published on October 30, 2024

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