Emily Haynes, Nursing Supervisor and Assistant Director of Nursing at Liberty Commons, was born and raised in Orleans, one of seven kids. Her dad was a dentist, her mom a nurse, but before Emily began her career first as a Certified Nursing Assistant in 2001, she had other plans:

“I started to go to college to be a zoologist,” she remembers. “That lasted about six months. Mom being a nurse, I thought I’d check out a CNA class. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into but I have always loved people, I’m always interested in doing the right thing by people. I found I loved the work.”

She joined the Liberty Commons team and with company support went on to earn her LPN degree, becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse in 2004, engaging in that role for many years. Interested in management as well as hands-on care, she left Liberty Commons to work elsewhere for two years, “but when a leadership position became available here, I came running back,” she smiles, around the same time she became a mother.

In her management role, with so much hands-on experience, Emily finds she can step in and help in multiple ways.

“I can troubleshoot anything that comes along,” she says. That includes helping with patient care, filling in when vacations come along, while overseeing the three nursing units in a very active facility.

“On an average day, crossing all three shifts, there might be 20 nurses and 30 to 40 CNAs here,” she says. “So we need to make sure we have good process and plans, meetings to coordinate and keep everything running smoothly.”

She has another specialty that is very important in any health care setting; wound care, which can cover everything from bumps and bruises to skin tears and recovery from incisions.

“I’ve always been drawn to working with skin, helping keep skin healthy,” she says. “So you might say I watch over skin in the building. Having become a Certified Wound Specialist (CWS) is something of a big deal. After three years of experience I took a test that is tough like nursing boards are tough, and you have to keep up to date.” Emily expresses great pride in bringing this level of clinical specialization in-house to Liberty Commons.

While that combination of skills and interests, experience and flexibility, allows Emily to refer to herself as “a jack of all trades”, it actually doesn’t begin to capture the depth of professional training she can bring to every role, or the hands-on understanding she carries into her management position.