South Dakota Nurse - May 2022

May, June, July 2022 South Dakota Nurse Page 7
Bringing Hope To The Future...continued from page 1
“After my last high school summer, I moved to the
Twin Cities to attend the Free Lutheran Bible College
(FLBC). My time there was invaluable and provided
me with a solid foundation and tremendous growth
spiritually and as a person. I also gained a broader
worldview which played into my career choice.
“I saw the needs of people here in the US and
elsewhere in the world and subsequently found the
profession of nursing, which provided hope to meet
some of these needs. At Bible College, I am surrounded
by an incredible group of people and immersed in
valuable studies. It was the perfect place to form the
goals I still am pursuing.
“My mind became set on becoming a nurse
practitioner with the ambition to practice here in the US
and other countries in some form of mission work. The
path forward seemed to indicate SDSU as the university
to obtain my nursing degree, but I was not ready to go
home yet.
“I discussed this with my friends. Four of my closest
classmates who graduated from FLBC and I moved to
Hawaii for the adventure of a lifetime. Here, I attended
a small community college to start knocking out the
prerequisites required for the SDSU nursing program.
“I moved back to my home land and was accepted
into the nursing program at SDSU. I couldn’t ask for a
better nursing school experience. Still in pursuit of my
final goal of nurse practitioner, I applied for grad school
while in under grad and was accepted two weeks after
graduation.”
Goodfellow has worked in the Brain and Spine
Unit at Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls since
2019. The Brain and Spine Unit has all three levels
of inpatient care (medical/surgical, step-down ICU,
and neurocritical care). “This is a perfect location to
gain a broad range of skills while gaining experience
in all levels of care. I participate in the Unit Practice
Committee and have obtained my national stroke
certification. This unit has its challenges, but the team
is top notch and it’s a great place to make a difference
in the lives of patients,” he said.
“Serving those who need health care the most”
is Goodfellow’s number one professional goal. “I
am a man who takes pride in his home state of South
Dakota, this means considering where I can make the
biggest difference here in this great state and finding
innovative ways to change the lives of individual people
and improve the care of underserved people groups.”
Additionally, he seeks additional certifications in other
critical care areas that interest him and enhance the
DNP degree.
Goodfellows doctoral project centers on
implementing a neurocritical care unit for a palliative
screening intervention program. “The project is
basically teaching and enabling our nurses to screen for
and identify any palliative needs that our patients and/
or family members may be experiencing. The needs can
then be brought to the care team and addressed using
a list of options available for the patient such as a care
conference or a palliative specialist consult.”
This project is vital to Goodfellow because of the
patients it will serve. “A neuro critical care unit serves
a patient population that has complicated diagnoses,
difficult prognoses, and often times poor outcomes. My
hope for this project is to bring important patient and
family needs to the forefront of our care and to meet
these needs with holistic, patient-centered care.”
“It’s exciting to be taking steps towards becoming
a provider while carrying with me [that which] I have
learned as a bedside nurse. Having a basis of previous
medical knowledge has helped greatly when diving
further into healthcare issues,” said Goodfellow. “The
leadership portion of the doctoral process has so far
surprised me in that, it is forcing me to consider issues
from a leadership perspective and to consider how the
NP role can be used to its fullest extent.”
It is a significant challenge to balance job
responsibilities and academia. “Most floors in the
nation are experiencing staff shortages due to burnout
from COVID and multiple other factors so the pressure
to work more as an RN makes balancing work and
school extremely difficult and often times exhausting,”
he said. “There is rarely time to recover from a difficult
shift and there are few days where long hours of
studying are required.”
When she was Goodfellow’s supervisor, Alyssa
Stauffacher proved to be an exceptionally supportive
and helpful mentor. “She helped me every step of the
way!” said Goodfellow.
Stauffacher gives her impressions of meeting
Goodfellow for his Brain and Spine Unit RN position
interview. “From the very first moment of introductions
Marcus’s evangelistic virtue was obvious through
his words and his actions. Marcus doesn’t sort his
life experiences into buckets: work life, personal
life, worship activities, etc. Instead, Marcus is fully
comfortable and is an expert at living life as a person
who is true to all aspects of what is important.”
She describes Goodfellow as hospitable, a listener,
and compassionate. “Marcus has a beautiful ability
to instantly read a situation and sense whether his
approach should be calm, slow and gentle, upbeat
and energetic, or fun and entertaining,” she said. His
passion for healthcare and caring for people is evident
to his patients and colleagues.”
Stauffacher saw his passion and dedication to
patients, family members, colleagues, and strangers
from the very beginning of his nursing experiences.
A notably responsible leader, Goodfellow takes every
opportunity “to help as many people as possible as
often as possible.” For example, during the global
pandemic, he never showed “discouragement,
exhaustion, or lack of dedication to his personal
mission.” “He was at work with a smile on his face, a
positive word of encouragement for absolutely everyone,
and a personal toolbox of opportunities to bring hope
and encouragement to everyone he interacts,” she said.
Goodfellow takes commitment to his colleagues
beyond the end of his work shift. For example, he
initiated, arranged, and hosted a Bible study group
and social events for colleagues, excluding no one.
“He recognizes the daily struggle that healthcare
workers experience and has had a tremendously positive
and uplifting impact on his fellow coworkers,” said
Stauffacher.
Resilience and positivity are signature Goodfellow
qualities. “We work in a career that often experiences
tragedy firsthand. A person with positivity is helpful
through the good times and the bad. He affects the
people we work with and the patients we serve.” And
the cornerstone of his personal life and nursing practice
is his “spiritual views in a sense that I view each
individual as loved, special, and on equal standings
with myself and everyone else in terms of overall
merit.”
“Marcus is a truly selfless person,” said Stauffacher.
“Marcus has the most incredible resilience and
positivity of anyone that I’ve met, [which] allow him
to instantly connect with people in a manner that
involves no judgement, no agenda, just pure and honest
kindness.”
Goodfellows selflessness is demonstrated in serving
professional organization activities at the district,
region, council, state and national levels for the past
five years. Service is his middle name.
His appreciation of and gratitude for his parents
(Connie and Dean) and his two brothers (Josh and
Andrew) is evident. “They have always supported me
throughout my life and academic journey.” He enjoys
hunting, music, fishing, water sports, any sport on a
board, mountain biking, and frisbee golf. He is open to
“trying new things and experiencing different cultures.”
And a good read (“textbooks of course!”), video games,
spending time with friends and family, and hunting
(turkey, deer, elk) are his go-to activities to renew his
soul and spirit.
For Goodfellow, there has never been a question
of what he was supposed to do with his life? On the
contrary, “I can say confidently that ever since the
thought of entering the field of nursing came into my
mind, I have had the blessing of knowing that there is
no other place I would rather be.”
Stauffacher confidently summaries Goodfellow.
“He honors the nursing profession through exemplary
clinical performance, outstanding selflessness and
kindness to everyone and teamwork and innovation
that constantly strives to better support patients and
healthcare colleagues. [He] brings hope to the future of
healthcare.”