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As hospitals continue to grapple with staffing shortages, La Rabida continues to be a destination workplace for some of the industry’s most passionate caretakers. That’s especially true for those who received care here as a child.

“It’s been a big part of my life as far as I can remember,” says Chanda Fluellen, a respiratory therapist.

La Rabida became an even bigger part of her life during the pandemic, when she landed her “dream job” here in September 2020.

“My mother told me that I told the nurse when I was a kid that one day I was going to work here,” she remembers.

She came to the hospital on and off her entire childhood. The 6-year-old didn’t know it at the time, but her mother’s cigarette smoke was triggering her asthma attacks.

“That kept me here a lot,” she says.

She would stay for days at a time on the gem on the lake while her breathing stabilized. It’s here where she decided she would pursue a career in healthcare. She would return decades later and make good on that promise.

Her favorite part of the hospital, known as the commons, has since been converted into a rehabilitation gym.

“They had like everything a kid could want in there,” she says. “There was a big TV, we’d watch movies, eat popcorn.

It was, you know, home away from home. I felt absolutely safe here.”

She now makes sure her own patients feel safe.

“It’s really babies, for me. Working with children was always my goal. Giving back what was given to me.”

After stints at a handful of other major area hospitals, she says she found her home again at La Rabida. “This is where I always wanted to be,” she says.

She says while a lot has changed since she was a patient, the standard of care has not. She relishes the 1-on-1 time she has to spend with each patient, playing with them and really getting to know their routines so she can provide tailored care. But the best part, she says, is watching them grow.

“When they first get here a lot of times they’re very sick,” she says.

“Then over time you see them start getting liberated from the ventilator and doing things that other babies can do.”

Because our patients at La Rabida are often hospitalized for a long time, they really bond with their caretakers.

“Once patients get here they’re with rehab, PT, OT, speech therapy, respiratory; everybody working as a team to help them get to where they need to be,” Fluellen says.

“They wouldn’t get that anywhere else.”