2010 Health Care Champion Honoree: June Johnson

June Johnson spent much of her childhood in hospital waiting rooms as her father was treated for heart disease. She found comfort in the hospital setting, but most appealing, she says, were the nurses.

“Nurses were kind of an authoritative being,” says Johnson, administrative director of CoxHealth’s Hulston Cancer Center. “They were very starched in crisp white uniforms and white hose and white hats, and they really ran everything.”

Children weren’t allowed to visit with patients at the time, but Johnson says nurses let her see her dad.

Johnson earned her nursing diploma at Cox College in 1986 and went to work as a nurse at CoxHealth. A decade later, she was promoted to manager of CoxHealth’s The Women’s Center. She joined the Hulston center in 2002 and was promoted to her current role in 2005.

Johnson says the switch to an administrative role took some adjusting.

“With patient care, you feel good all day long every day, because you see immediately the results of your labor,” Johnson says. “With an administrative role, sometimes you’ll have a project that takes years to really bring to a satisfying point.”

Among her projects are the Allenbrand Resource Center and the Glauser Patient Advocacy Program, the inspiration for which came from her mother’s battle with lung cancer.

Karen Kramer, chief nursing officer at CoxHealth, says Johnson’s patient advocacy programs link patients with community and financial support.

“She won’t let herself get sidetracked or other people get sidetracked or frustrated when she’s trying to advocate for patients and their needs,” Kramer says of Johnson, noting that some of the center’s programs are driven by feedback Johnson’s received from patients.

To keep patient care at the forefront, Johnson says she thinks about how she would want her own parents to be treated.

“We need to always view these patients as the only person that we care about today,” she says. “They are absolutely the most important piece of our work … that person who’s standing right in front of you that you’re taking care of right now.”
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