Nurse practitioner finds purpose on palliative care team

Nurse Practitioner Bailey Butrum knows the importance and the value palliative care offers patients and their families. After spending several years as a bedside nurse, Butrum earned her nurse practitioner license and a spot on Riley's palliative care team on October 1. It's a role she's honored to serve, and one that would undoubtedly make her late mother proud.

"It is a blessing to be there for the hardest part of somebody's life," Butrum said.

Butrum said her appreciation for palliative care began while she was a nurse on 8 West at Riley Hospital for Children.

"We had some tough cases and some chronic kids and they really helped kind of provide support to us as a nursing team and to all of our families," Butrum said.

Butrum found the strategies she learned from the palliative care team helped her at home as she cared for her grandparents.

"I got to make sure that their hardest time in life played out exactly how they wanted it to play out, and made sure that they got to stay home," Butrum said. "That was one of the important things for them."

Butrum called her grandparents the kindest, most heartfelt people she knew, who raised Butrum's late mother to "have this wonderful love of children." Butrum's mom worked at Riley from 1995 to 1998. She passed away when Butrum was 2 years old and her sister was 15 months old after a battle with breast cancer.

"All three of them inspire me to do what I do every day," Butrum said.