Photo By Sgt. Summer Keiser | OKLAHOMA CITY - Air Force Capt. Ashley Franks, left, and Maj. Leah Godwin, right, both...... read more read more
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OKLAHOMA CITY, O.K. – “Patients depend on nurses to care for them at their worst moments,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Leah Godwin, a Woodstock, Georgia, native and the officer in charge for the Air Force medical team temporarily deployed here. “Our profession has risen to the occasion and has been relentless. Nurses choose this profession to serve others, and the past two years have truly put that to test.”
Currently, Godwin and a team of Airmen are deployed to assist INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center for approximately 30 days, or at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
This is her second mission supporting the whole-of-government COVID response, as she served in 2021 at the Community Vaccination Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“This [Federal Emergency Management Agency] support deployment is vastly different from serving overseas in a hostile environment,” Godwin said.
Godwin said serving within the community stateside is a unique mission since typically active-duty military serve outside of the United States.
“Like the previous FEMA deployment, partnering with civilian authorities and FEMA has been an amazing opportunity to experience an entirely different aspect of military service,” Godwin said. “Having a direct impact on the community and seeing their appreciation is a pretty indescribable feeling.”
Whether at home station, or deployed, Godwin’s primary motivator is to take care of patients and those service members around her, like so many military nurses that came before her.
Godwin said that as a nurse, she is following in the footsteps of two of her grandmothers. Her maternal great grandmother, Adele Smith, and her paternal grandmother, Virginia Bocinsky, were both nurses. However, what intrigued her to pursue her profession didn’t originate from familial influences.
“I used to watch the TV show ‘ER’ with my mom, which is where my interest in medicine stemmed from,” Godwin said. “My love for science and medicine and caring for people led me to choose nursing as a profession. [I] quickly fell in love with wanting to care for the sick and injured.”
Godwin attended Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, to receive her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and attended Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire, to receive her Masters in Nursing.
Now, after 12 years in the Air Force as a nurse, Godwin’s current role as a flight commander is to support her medical staff.
“[I] listen to their incredible ideas and process improvements, and work towards a common goal to provide the best care possible to our active duty, retired, and beneficiaries,” Godwin said.
Prior to receiving her education, Godwin didn’t have the intention of entering military service.
“As a rising senior in nursing school, I was unsure of my plans after graduation,” Godwin said.
Not knowing where to take her career, she attended an activities fair hosted at her college and came across the U.S. Army Nurse Corps information booth.
Godwin was immediately drawn to the idea of serving in the military and began to look at different options for nurses to commission.
She submitted information requests not only for the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, but for the Air Force as well.
“Since my grandfather retired from the Air Force as a pilot after 27 years of service, I knew that the Air Force was a branch I wanted to consider,” she continued.
The following day, Godwin received news from an Air Force recruiter.
“Air Force it was!” Godwin said. She immediately replied to the recruiter who had offered her a loan repayment and a sign-on bonus in exchange for six years of service.
Once she became a military nurse, Godwin’s knowledge and skills were placed to the test. Her first deployment overseas involved taking care of the critically injured in Afghanistan.
“I deployed to Bagram Air Base in 2012 and worked on the Intermediate Care Ward, Craig Joint Theater Hospital (CJTH),” Godwin said.
Godwin said the Role 3 hospital consisted of 19 inpatient beds and cared for critically injured Americans, as well as local nationals and Afghan detainees requiring medical attention.
“This six-month deployment tested my critical thinking skills and my ability to perform in a high-stress environment,” Godwin said. “My time serving in Afghanistan was incredibly humbling and solidified my love for serving as a nurse in the military health service.”
Godwin met her husband, U.S. Army Maj. Zachary Godwin, a nurse methods analyst working directly with the Department of Nursing at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, at their first duty stations at Joint Base San Antonio- Fort Sam Houston, Texas .
“We were both second lieutenants working in Brooke Army Medical Center as nurses, and new to the city,” Godwin said.
They were introduced to each other by a mutual friend at a send-off dinner for a nurse that was deploying.
Both learned they had signed up to run in the same half marathon the following weekend and exchanged numbers to meet up after the race.
“We quickly became close friends exploring a new city together,” Godwin said. “We’ve been married for seven years and have moved together in the military three times with a pending [permanent change of station] this summer back to San Antonio where it all began.”
The Godwins have three young children. They have their six-year-old William, four-year-old James, and two-year-old Elise.
Altogether, Godwin’s family is one of her biggest motivators to continue serving in the military.
“They don’t yet fully understand what exactly Zachary and I do as service members, but they see us working hard every day and wearing a uniform,” Godwin said. “Zachary and I serve to be their role models and an example of service before self.”
Godwin said her children have already made huge sacrifices. They’ve moved three times, have attended four different daycares, said goodbye to friends, and have had to video chat through two deployments with their parents.
Despite both her and her husband being in active-duty, Godwin makes an effort to maintain a balance between work and life.
“Finding a healthy work-life balance is something we really strive to achieve, but it is not easy,” Godwin said.
Godwin said she struggles from the pandemic adding an extra layer of complexity thanks to quarantine rules, childcare limitations, and virtual schooling.
Godwin depends on her husband to help make sure her family’s needs are met.
“Zachary and I are a team and truly rely on one another to raise a young family,” Godwin said. “We are constantly communicating throughout the day, with each other and our commands.”
She said they are both incredibly grateful to their leaders in their command chains who have been flexible, and to their friends and family who have stepped in when she or Zachary have been called to serve outside the home.
As nurses, both her and her husband have supported patients throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“To say that the past two years has been extremely taxing on healthcare professionals is a huge understatement,” Godwin said. “The pandemic has shown a light on healthcare providers – the community has seen how incredibly hardworking and caring we are.”
Godwin said though she does feel exhausted from all the work the pandemic brought forth, she remains determined to continue working because people are depending on nurses.
As the supervisor of the Airmen deployed, Godwin oversees part of the collaboration between the military nurses and civilian healthcare workers.
“The INTEGRIS team has been phenomenal from the day we arrived,” Godwin said. “They gave us a warm welcome and are treating us like one of their own – we have created a strong partnership and feel extremely supported by fellow staff and managers.”
With the support from the Airmen deployed here, both military and civilian medical professionals worked together to lessen the patient loads per nurse and doctor.
Godwin said knowing that the military is able to give INTEGRIS a break and a decreased patient load is a great feeling.
“I love that my job is challenging, fast-paced, and every day offers something new,” Godwin said. “Although I am no longer at the bedside providing hands-on nursing care, I am still able to have a positive impact on nursing practice as a whole.”
After their arrival to Oklahoma City, each Air Force member deployed received a care package made by Tinker Air Force Base.
Godwin said Tinker AFB had gone above and beyond to make their deployed Air Force team feel welcome to Oklahoma City. She expressed that she did not want their thoughtfulness to go unnoticed.
“We would like to extend a huge thank you to our brothers and sisters at Tinker AFB!” said Godwin. “The Air Force is truly one big family, and we rely on one another, especially during deployments and the past two years navigating the pandemic.”
From watching TV with her mother, to coming across a Nurse Corps information booth at an activities fair, Godwin became a nurse and was commissioned into the Air Force by following the goals she set for herself with the options she had.
“The Air Force provides nurses with so many different opportunities,” Godwin said. “Flight nursing, all nursing specialties, graduate-level degrees, leadership, and management roles…the list is endless really.”
Godwin describes the Nurse Corps as a very tight-knit group of professionals all working towards a common goal to provide the best nursing care to active-duty members and their families.
“To be a part of an organization that is so much bigger than yourself is very empowering,” said Godwin. “I love being in the Air Force and serving my country.”
| Date Taken: | 02.22.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.07.2022 22:31 |
| Story ID: | 415969 |
| Location: | OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Hometown: | WOODSTOCK, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 395 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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