Nurses are the backbone of our health care system. From lending an empathetic ear to administering medications to sitting with us when it feels like the world is falling down around us, they are there—making us feel human while seeming superhuman themselves. The nurses within these pages are the ones you nominated for their lasting influence, and they are truly the champions of our West Virginia centers of care. Read their stories, discover what inspires them, and be inspired yourself.

David Belcher

RN, Clinical Nurse Coordinator Mon Health Medical Center Specialty: Perioperative nursing

David Belcher worked in a paper mill before he decided to make nursing his career. It was a time, he says, when many men who were laborers in mills and coal mines were going back to school and finding new paths. His wife, who worked as a nurse recruiter, nudged him in that direction.

He started with a surgical technology program to get himself into an operating room, and, when he eventually finished nursing school, it was a transition he never looked back from. Now with more than two decades of experience in the field, he hasn’t lost steam.

Part of what Belcher loves most about the job is seeing the work in action. “You get to see immediate results in the operating room,” he says, noting that seeing a joint replacement or a hernia repair executed with your own eyes is a far cry from having to wait weeks for a follow-up with a patient to see how they’re doing. The technology is a big draw for him, too. “We’re using robots on a daily basis now in operating rooms. It’s pretty neat to see that all come from 15 years ago to what it is now,” he says. “All the audio/visual stuff that we use for laparoscopic cases, using cameras—the quality now versus when I started is just an unbelievable difference.”

Belcher says he hopes for more young people to be introduced to the field in those pivotal years when they’re making decisions about their education, and he specifically hopes that folks find their niche in the surgical field. “It’s not an easy place to work, but it’s a very rewarding place to work,” he says. “It’s kind of a place where you become part of a family. You rely on each other a lot.”

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