8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J U N E 2 0 1 6
T
hey say nurses eat their young, but then you
see a retiring director of nursing walking
her replacement around the trade show
floor, a mama tiger showing her cub the ropes,
and your faith in the profession is restored.
Connie Sinnk, RN, is retiring next month, a
few weeks shy of her 65
th
birthday, from the
Main Line Spine Surgery Center, the 6,000
patient-a-year suburban Philadelphia facility
she helped launch 10 years ago, her "baby."
The physician-owners let her hand-pick her suc-
cessor as director of nursing, and she headed
straight for Beth Pickford, RN, BSN, a longtime
part-time staff nurse who remembers the offer
going something like this: "When Connie
approached me and asked me if I wanted it, she
said, 'That's my baby. And don't say no.'"
But she did say no. With 3 active kids, including a gymnast, the timing
wasn't right for Ms. Pickford to jump into a full-time role. But she
reconsidered once things quieted down at home. There was something
else, too. She didn't like the idea of an outsider taking over. "I wasn't
really sure I wanted to be in a director's role, but I was worried that
someone new would change the culture," she says. "So I thought, Why
not give it a try?"
Why not, indeed. So at age 49, Ms. Pickford is about to step into a
director's role that both scares and excites her. "There's so many
things to learn that I haven't been exposed to, so many unknowns,"
Changing of the Guard
When it's time to retire, will you train your replacement the right way?
Editor's Page
Dan O'Connor
• STAND BY ME Beth Pickford, RN, BSN, and Connie
Sinnk, RN, walked the ASCA exhibit hall together.