May 11 2020 – Since our beginning, Palm Health Foundation has recognized how essential our local healthcare workers are to the good health of our community and have invested in them through our grantmaking. We know that many who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Palm Beach County, and across the country, have been cared for by dedicated nurses.

 

May is a big month for healthcare heroes – both National Nurses Week and National Hospital Week fall in this month. Palm Health Foundation is privileged to celebrate and support local nurses this month and throughout the year through our Nursing Advancement Fund. Since 2001, the foundation has awarded more than $3 million in nursing scholarships due to the generosity of donors to this fund.

 

Our nursing scholarship program has introduced us to many of the incredible heroes who fight for our community’s health every day. One of these heroes is Palm Beach Atlantic University DNP graduate student Dustin Magdales, RN, MSN.

 

Upon returning from a medical mission trip to El Salvador in March, 2020, she found that her neuro Step Down Unit at JFK Medical Center had transitioned to a COVID-19 floor. She immediately focused on an important lesson learned at PBAU: staying FAT—flexible, adaptable and teachable, and encouraged her fellow nurses to do the same.

 

Grateful to the foundation for supporting the pursuit of her Master’s Degree and her Doctorate degree, Dustin also embraces the university’s biblical lessons to provide peace to the sick and dying.  She has found Colossians 3:1-3 to be calming to think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. “Patients want you to be honest and human,” said Dustin. “It’s about making connections to let them know we can do life together.”