Cary Orrick: 30 years
Program Manager, Quality and Operations
Health System Patient Safety: Quality and Operational Excellence
First UTSW job: Student Nurse, and then I moved to Graduate Nurse in December 1994.
Best part about my job: I work with a very large and diverse team. My current position allows me to interact with front-line staff, leaders, and providers and do this with the comfort of a well-led group of specialists in patient safety.
How co-workers describe me: I know at least one person would call me a nerd. Sheena just said I was a genius (then helped me spell it).
Unusual UTSW memory: What comes to mind is the move to William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital from St. Paul University Hospital in 2014. That morning, ambulances lined up from our drive-through in the Emergency Department down past the Interstate 35 underpass. It was a monumental task for all of us to just move all the patients across the street.
My proudest UTSW accomplishment: Growing with our facility. The former St. Paul University Hospital was a good place to work, but it is not the recognized Clements University Hospital (CUH) that we have become today. Our Magnet journey allowed me to share projects and research at several conferences with posters and platform presentations. Supported by our Nursing Research Department, I was part of a research project that led to my first published paper.
I’m really good at: Having too many projects and not enough time. My house is likely the longest standing remodel project in Texas.
Hobbies: Cycling is my escape. I own five bikes right now and have had more in the past. I rode the 50th anniversary Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) in 2023, which involved pedaling 500 miles across Iowa in a week.
Surprising fact: My wife delivered our second child in 1999 at home. I was the unplanned “receiver” of this delivery, and whoever filled out the birth certificate put my name in as the attending physician. Equally odd fact: I became an ordained minister in Arkansas in 2020 so that I could officiate at my eldest daughter’s wedding.
Final note: I was in the Emergency Department at St. Paul and here at CUH for over 20 years, almost like I didn’t know there were other things I could find stimulating. I was mistaken. There seems to always be another role, task, or project that I find exciting. After 30 years of nursing, I have changed to a new role just recently. Again, I find myself a student, leveraging decades of experience to be the best nurse I can be.