Jacqueline Burchum - ministering to the huddled masses

By Deborah Turner

Growing up in McKenzie, Jackie Rosenjack had an artistic bent. She could draw anything with amazing precision and wrote poetry and stories that held such promise that her teachers encouraged her to pursue a future in the arts.

After graduating from McKenzie High School in 1973, she began attending Memphis State University as a fine arts major where she also received instruction from the school of hard knocks in learning the high cost of art supplies as well as the costs of living away from home. Despite several scholarships and a work-study arrangement, she ran out of money after the first couple of months.

"I was only 18 years old and very naïve. I had no idea that the required art supplies would cost a fortune," she says.

Back home during Christmas break, she became ill one evening with intense abdominal pain that would not subside despite consultation with a physician. Finally, in desperation, her mother took her to the emergency room at Carroll County General Hospital where she was admitted for observation. Exploratory surgery the following day revealed a ruptured appendix.

Complications developed, including peritonitis (a life-threatening infection of the abdominal lining) and pneumonia in both lungs. For days her prognosis wavered. As she lay helpless, it was the nurses who cared for her night and day that made the difference in her comfort and who calmed the fears of her family.

"So there I am," she recalls, "and I have these wonderful people who are helping me, and I thought, "I'd like to do that.'"

But financial reality lay between her and the ready pursuit of any dream, and she began working at Wilker Brothers Inc., the "pajama factory" in McKenzie, setting money aside for the future.

For years, Jackie had been friends with Tony Burchum, a native of nearby Camden. They had dated for a time, then went their separate ways while maintaining loose contact.

When Tony moved to California, the two began writing and their friendship blossomed into what they called "best friends". In his long letters, Tony extolled the wonderful opportunities that California offered - including free college education to California citizens. Jackie packed her bags and bought a one-way ticket to California.

There, she found a position as a nurses' aide in a convalescent center. "It was heartbreaking," she recalls. "The patients had conditions that made them dependent on the nursing staff for their activities of daily living. My position as an aide was incredibly important to their quality of living."

Almost a year after moving to California, on April 17, 1976 - also her 21st birthday - Jackie and Tony were married in Palm Springs Baptist Church.

Her year of residency in California complete, she was able to resume her education, studying business initially because of the promise the field offered.

"I took one semester and made A's, but I was miserable," she relates.

At the college, she took the Strong Interest Inventory, a tool that measures ones interests over a wide range of occupations, work-related activities, hobbies, and leisure activities. The Inventory is based on the idea that individuals are more satisfied and productive when they work in jobs that they find interesting and when they work with people whose interests are similar to their own, its purpose being to identify one's optimum career choices. Jackie's results showed that she would be happiest as either a priest or a registered nurse.

"It was right on the money," she says with the assurance of one who is confident of her life's direction.

She began taking the prerequisites to a degree in nursing: anatomy and physiology, chemistry, microbiology and related courses and was admitted to nursing school in 1977.

She was a semester away from attaining her associate's degree when, especially because of problems she was having in her pregnancy, she became homesick for home and family in Tennessee. Jackie and Tony made their way east, towing their home, a used travel trailer, behind their old yellow Dodge. Their son, Charles, was born on September 15, 1979, by which time they had established a homestead on Tony's ancestral lands in rural Camden.

Back in Tennessee, reality became a stumbling block once more with the discovery that the only local college that offered an associate degree in nursing required that students complete at least a year of study in order to graduate from their institution. With a new family and the prospect of a full year of classes ahead of her, funding was once more a problem. Jackie went back to the factory, saving money to complete her education.

She persevered, graduating from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1981 as a registered nurse. She worked in the Critical Care Unit of Huntingdon's Carroll County General Hospital for two years before deciding, in 1983, to go back to school for her BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) at Union University, which was the only local college offering a BSN at the time.

Jackie upon her graduation in 1981

While attending Union, she worked the night shift in the critical care unit at CCGH, then made the hour's drive to Jackson for morning classes. Afterward, she would sleep in her car until time for afternoon classes, and then make the long drive back to Camden to attend to her responsibilities as a wife and mother before getting ready for the night shift again.

"I wasn't the only one doing that," she asserts frankly. "Back then Union offered the only BSN course in West Tennessee outside of Memphis. If you wanted it, you did what you had to do to get it."

When Tony decided to go back to school to pursue studies in pre-medical technology, the couple moved to Jackson to be closer to Union, while maintaining their home in Camden. Jackie graduated in 1985, the same year that Tony decided to change his major to nursing. He was impressed with the BSN program that was offered at Austin-Peay University, so the family moved to Clarksville where Jackie found employment in Springfield as the Director of a Critical Care Unit.

Following Tony's graduation, the Burchums returned to Camden where both accepted positions at Camden General Hospital. Jackie worked as Director of Education while Tony worked as a shift supervisor. However, she missed the contact with patients and a year later, she was driving to Jackson again, this time as an emergency nurse at Jackson Madison County General Hospital (JMCGH).

In order to be her best, she took additional courses and became certified as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). She also took the national certification exam and became certified as an emergency nurse (CEN).

"It was probably the best position I'd had as far as enjoying the work," she says, adding that the episodes involving patient care on the TV show, "E.R.", are very realistic.

"Emergency nursing is an incredible specialty," she emphasizes, "and as with all nursing, the good nurse provides much more than advanced skills. Emergency nurses have a sacred trust. Often they are the last person a patient sees. Often it is with the emergency nurse that patients share their last thoughts. The families of these patients require special care, as well. It is an awesome responsibility and privilege."

Along the way, she began teaching at Union University in addition to nursing: "Union needed adjunct faculty to teach clinical (a class in which students spend time working in hospitals.) I used that money to pay for the master's degree."

After saving money from her second job, she began attending classes at the University of Tennessee at Memphis in 1995, eighteen months later graduating with a master's degree which enabled her to see patients as a Nurse Practitioner. She explains, "With a masters degree you specialize. Some nurses specialize in administration, others in education or similar areas. Because I enjoyed patient interaction, I decided on the family nurse practitioner (FNP) tract."

Jackie is hesitant to speak of the honors she has earned over the years in her work and during the pursuit of her education. "I'm serious when I say that I stick these in a drawer and don't look back. It's the journey along the way that is important; what is accomplished in the process is more important than the honor. It's like reaching the peak of a mountain following the climb. While it's exhilarating at the time, afterward you go back down unless you set your sights for higher goals. So it is with honors.

"What is important is what is done to achieve the honor," she continues. "An analogy is an "A" grade. The "A" is not important. What is important is the learning that took place to achieve the "A". I have known many students who knew the material covered in a test backward and forward but, for whatever reason, did not test as well as the student making the "A". Similarly, there are nurses doing important work on a daily basis - especially those working at the bedside or otherwise providing direct care - that do not receive honors or accolades, yet they are heroes in every sense of the word."

She entered a new and extraordinary phase in her career when she joined forces with Doctors Tony and Sharon Little to open Cornerstone Family Medical Clinic in Camden.

"It was really exciting because we were starting up from scratch; it was a new adventure," Jackie recalls enthusiastically. However, the position also took a toll on her family life. "I was working at least 80 hours a week. It wasn't fair to my husband and son and I was not willing to sacrifice my family."

Although she received offers to work in other clinics as a Nurse Practitioner, it was a position with The University of Memphis that she found especially intriguing.

"Dr. Toni Bargagliotti, the dean of the school of nursing at The University of Memphis and Dr. Leslie West Sands, the director of Jackson State's nursing program, had developed a revolutionary plan of study that would allow Jackson State's nursing students to work on the BSN degree while completing requirements for the associate degree. It was a stroke of genius! It was everything I wish I had had when I was struggling to get my own education," she declares.

Jackie and her husband of 25 years, Tony, are active members of the Hollow Rock Primitive Baptist Church in Hollow Rock, Tennessee

While Jackson State offers freshman and sophomore nursing courses, the University of Memphis brings junior and senior courses to the students. The program also offers a means for those who were already RNs to acquire a BSN degree.

With evening classes available on the Jackson State campus along with the option of online classes, students are afforded the flexibility to continue their education part-time while working a full-time job, and upon attaining their BSN can go right into studies toward their masters degrees.

Given her own early struggles in obtaining her education, along with her perseverance, advanced knowledge and experience as well as technological savvy, the University couldn't have made a better choice of coordinator, teacher, and mentor for students enrolled in the program.

In fact, Jackie fills all these roles and more as the only faculty member of the University of Memphis who is based on the Jackson Campus.

She explains, "The University of Memphis has an office on the Jackson State University campus, but it is a separate institution from Jackson State. As coordinator, I am involved in every aspect of the program; in addition to teaching the classes I do everything from recruiting to advising. We've also been invited to present the University's visionary plan for nursing education at prestigious national meetings."

As for those early struggles, she says, "Every bad thing that has happened to me has led to something better. I think it was a good thing that I ended up in the hospital because the way things went I ended up being routed in the right direction. Also, through my own experiences, I can see how to make things better for others so they don't have to cope with the same problems."

That hardships have made her more aware of the needs of others is apparent, and in no way more obvious than in her latest pursuits that came about from one small discovery that set the ball rolling to bring all of Jackie's combined experience and education into action that will, in time, make a difference in the lives of many.

As a part of the requirements of a class in community health nursing, students are placed in various health departments across West Tennessee after which each prepares an essay describing his or her individual experience in the health care setting.

"Some of the students were reporting terrible things that were happening to the migrant populations," she says with great concern. "The would come to a clinic to get health care and be turned away because there was no Spanish-speaking employees. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is supposed to prevent that.

"As a teacher, I have to make sure that what my students are telling me is correct, and some of the things they were saying seemed to be a little unbelievable. I decided to check it out and found out that what they were saying was absolutely true.

"Being a migrant farm worker where your job is so transitory anyway, just taking off work to get help is risky, plus a lot of them don't have cars or telephones to make appointments. Many of them are American and those that aren't were invited here to work by Americans. What they have to go through to access health care is atrocious, and it shouldn't happen in America."

She stressed the fact that the Mexican/Mexican-American migrant population is overall a hard-working people whose work in the farms and orchards of West Tennessee mirrors the work performed by many traditional farm families in West Tennessee. However, the jobs performed by these laborers generally do not offer benefits such as health insurance.

So bothered was she by the plight of the disadvantaged population that she set out to discover what could be done. She started talking to people who manage successful migrant health clinics and also discussed the issue with Dr. Bargagliotti who, Jackie says, "thought it was a wonderful idea" to establish a university-affiliated clinic in West Tennessee.

Not surprisingly, Jackie was soon engaged in furthering her education, enrolling in a doctoral program through the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center (UTHSC) in Memphis while maintaining her work responsibilities with the University Of Memphis' Dual Degree and RN-BSN Programs in Jackson.

Within the nurse practitioner specialty, Jackie's chosen area of expertise is transcultural nursing with a primary focus on migrant health. Always interested in other cultures, the experiences of the migrant families fueled her resolve to make a difference.

She is able to take all of her required classes online while taking other classes specific to transcultural nursing (that are not available through UT Health Sciences Center) wherever they are available. She took her first transcultural nursing course at the University of Southern Mississippi and recently completed an advanced course at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Subjects that she knows she needs but that are not specific requirements, such as learning the Spanish language, she adds on her own, last year traveling to Georgia for an intensive "Immersion Spanish" weekend class designed to teach basic language elements quickly.

In addition, she says, "I represented Tennessee in migrant farmworker advocacy working groups that met in Washington, DC a few months ago and I'm planning a trip to Cuba in January to study their public health system which, I'm told by Dr. Jaynes of the University of Southern Mississippi, is more effective than that in the U.S. However," she continues, "I'll have to see for myself if this is actually true."

She was precluded from accepting an invitation to do work in Romania because of her teaching obligations, however, she learned that opportunities to learn and help exist within the confines of Tennessee.

In searching for a way of meeting the requirements of her practical experience in transcultural nursing, Jackie discovered the Siloam Health Clinic in Nashville, a faith-based, family health center that provides assistance to a refugee and immigration population that included patients from 73 different homelands in the year 2000.

Jackie distinguished refugees from immigrants by explaining, "We actually see more patients in the "refugee" category. These are people who faced danger or persecution in their homeland - America became their refuge."

She discovered the Siloam Family Health Center while volunteering for Catholic Charities Refugee and Immigration Services in Nashville.

Since 1975, Catholic Charities has been assisting refugees in Nashville, with a goal of financial self-sufficiency within the first 90 days after arriving in America. The charity provides apartment set-up for incoming individuals and families, using donated furnishings, as well as providing initial food and clothing. They provide classes about American culture and life in Middle Tennessee and teach English, place the families' children in schools, and provide basic medical care and other services. Currently, Catholic Charities resettle around 350 people per year from countries such as Bosnia, Iraq, Kurdistan (Northern Iraq), Somalia, Vietnam and Cuba.

Through her work with both agencies, she comes into contact with people whose stories are mind-boggling in their severity. Among those served by the agencies are many of the "Lost Boys of Sudan". These young men, most of whom are now between 17 and 25 years old, were in the fields when their homes were burned, their parents killed and their sisters sold into slavery during Sudan's Civil War in 1987. They began walking, coming together during their perilous journey; some falling victim to hunger, wild animals or disease. Those who persevered over years of persecution - some 4000 orphaned boys - wound up in refugee camps in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp. Now, many of them are arriving in various locations across America.

In addition to more typical health disorders, many refugees experience problems related to post-traumatic stress disorder due to the extreme circumstances through which they have survived. Each story increases Jackie's resolve to make a difference.

"We make a choice," she says, "We can be part of the solution or part of the problem. I wanted to be part of a solution that will make the world better in a little way."

Jackie's long-term goal is to establish a community-based, university-affiliated clinic to serve the immigrant population in West Tennessee.

"It won't be my clinic," she stresses, "I would be one person among others providing care. Also, if you want an effective clinic, the people who work there must include people from the community because they will know the health care needs better than someone who is not a community member. One reason the Siloam Health Care Center is so successful in effectively reaching those in need is because the staff includes people from the immigrant community. So it would be important to include, say, family members of the migrant farmworkers in the clinic staff."

As for Jackie, she will continue teaching new nurses to take up their roles within the medical community. Says she, "The United States - and other countries as well - are in the midst of a nursing shortage unlike any in history. It is truly a crisis situation. As result of advances in healthcare, people are living longer but we are treating more chronic debilitating conditions. Those who are
hospitalized are much sicker than those who might have been hospitalized in the past. As a result, the old nurse-to-patient ratios don't work. What we are teaching nurses today is much more intensive and comprehensive than it was when I began nursing 20 years ago. Similarly, the care required by nurses is much more intensive and comprehensive."

Somehow, Jackie makes room in her life for church, with both she and husband Tony active members of the Hollow Rock Primitive Baptist Church in Hollow Rock. She is the daughter of Jo Ann Cooper of McKenzie, the granddaughter of Mildred Hicks, and is sister to Deborah Turner and Cathy Edlin, all of McKenzie, and Rick Rosenjack of Texas.
      

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