Mary Ellen Miller Endowment Funds Help Bring Renown Speaker to Confluence

There is a growing body of literature that explains how stress, anxiety, and burnout can contribute to a hostile work environment. These factors tend to converge in the healthcare sector and can lead to incivility and bullying behaviors, like rude comments, criticism, gossip, sabotage, and harassment among nurses and other medical staff.

Recognizing that our healthcare system is not immune to these intrapersonal challenges, Confluence Health nursing leadership decided to focus on these topics at the annual Charge Nurse Retreat held in September.
Mary Ellen Miller Continuing Education Endowment funds were leveraged to help bring Kathleen Bartholomew, RN to speak with nurses about how to foster a healthier, more collaborative work environment. Kathleen is the author of Ending Nurse-to-Ending Nurse-to-Nurse Hostility,Charting the Course, and The Dauntless Nurse: Communication Confidence Builder.

Mary Ellen Miller in 1996

Mary Ellen Miller Continuing Education Endowment Fund was founded in 1989 by local philanthropist and 1996 “Spirit of A.Z. Wells” Awardee Mary Ellen Miller.

Each year, funds generated by the endowment are used to sponsor lectures, bring healthcare educators to the community to provide new or updated skills, send staff to seminars, and fund teaching aides.

Endowments are a way that philanthropists can make their gift to the Confluence Health Foundation have a lasting impact on the community they love. In the last five years alone, nearly $25,000 of this endowment’s income has been distributed to benefit of Confluence Health and the Wenatchee Valley.