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Release Date: 7/10/2009
Surgical Nurse Celebrates 46th Year in Operating Room
Jane Hinkebein, R.N., celebrates her 46th year in the Operating Room of St. Anthony’s Medical Center.
Come September, Jane Hinkebein, R.N., will celebrate her 46th year in the Operating Room of St. Anthony’s Medical Center. Hinkebein is team leader in the Surgery Department, specializing in ear, nose and throat (ENT)/plastics and ophthalmology.
She stays current with the latest surgical procedures, including endoscopy, a minimally invasive diagnostic and surgical medical procedure that involves inserting a tube into the body. But Hinkebein can remember a time when St. Anthony’s was just a small hospital at Grand Boulevard and Chippewa Street, with just a few operating rooms and unsophisticated procedures.
“Surgery was very simple back then,” Hinkebein said. “We operated on the patient by making an incision: there were no endoscopy procedures. Equipment was very simple and instrumentation was very basic. We gave good patient care, but we didn’t have the options we have nowadays. Recovery time was a lot longer, because surgery involved a major incision in a large cavity. Usually it took eight weeks to recover from abdominal or chest surgery.”
A native of South Bend, Ind., Jane Coomes was on her pediatric rotation of hospitals at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in 1961, when she went on a blind date with a young St. Louis Police officer, Bill Hinkebein. The two soon were engaged to be married; and, when Bill set out to find an apartment for the couple, Jane asked him to find one near a hospital. He found a place on Meramec Street near a “nice little hospital” named St. Anthony’s. Jane sent in an application and set up an interview with the director of nursing. The rest, as they say, was history.
Dedicated in 1900 at South Grand Boulevard and Chippewa Street, the old St. Anthony’s was showing its age when Hinkebein arrived in 1963. The major operating room suite, built before the era of central cooling, was equipped with a large window air-conditioning unit. The 1960s also preceded the age of disposables, so most supplies were washed and re-sterilized in an autoclave for use the next day. Surgeries were performed until noon or 1 p.m., and the rest of the day was spent preparing the equipment for the following day. “We didn’t waste much,” Hinkebein said. “Everything we used was cleaned, sterilized and reused in some way.”
Offered the job of head nurse in 1967, Jane Hinkebein served in management at St. Anthony’s for 25 years. She obtained a bachelor of arts degree in health care management and a master of arts degree in health care. Then, in 1991, she decided to go back to direct patient care.
“When I went into nursing, I didn’t know that I would have to learn to use cameras, computers, endoscopes, and a variety of technical equipment,” she said. “Today, everything possible is done through a scope. We can remove gallbladders, do colon resections and perform arthroscopic joint surgery through a scope. Often, the patient can be back to work in a short period of time.”
Hinkebein and her husband live in south St. Louis. They have two grown sons, Mark and Steve, and are expecting their sixth grandchild in July. She is a past president and officer of the Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN), and in 2004 she was honored with St. Anthony’s Nursing Excellence Award. Hinkebein said she has no plans to retire.
“I think St. Anthony’s is a very good place to work,” she said. “It’s gotten a lot bigger, of course, but I feel we give great care to our patients. Nursing has changed so much, but every day we must be prepared to meet the challenges as they come and to keep our patients safe. That’s our primary goal, and I think we do an excellent job of that.”
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