The WahZhaZhe Health Clinic has finished hiring its top brass, bringing on Marcy Barton as the director of nursing, the clinic’s CEO Mark Rogers announced Oct. 20 during a meeting of the Si-Si A-Pe-Txa board that oversees the clinic.
Barton, who grew up in Foraker where four generations of her Osage and ranching progenitors have lived, got her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Oklahoma State University in 2011 and has worked as a trauma and intensive care nurse in Oklahoma and Texas.
“I’m happy to be here and I’m excited about all of the new changes,” she told the board.
She said that after a stint at the University of Oklahoma hospital, she moved to Dallas, where she spent seven years at a level 1 trauma hospital and floated interventional radiology and gastrointestinal ICUs.
“Until Covid hit,” she said. “It became a big mess in Dallas, as you can imagine.”
Discouraged by the lack of protective equipment, unacceptably risky exposure to Covid, and an unreasonable workload, she decided to return home to the Osage.
“I love Osage County and I’m happy to be here.”
Barton also worked as a Covid-19 nurse at the WZZHC when it was under the direction of Dr. Ron Shaw.
In the past few months, the WZZHC has hired Rogers as its CEO, James Brazel as its Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Tony Little as its Chief Medical Officer, Alyssa Campbell as legal adviser and Julie Standing Bear as the human resources director.
The new staff has been picked to lead the clinic in its transition to an independent enterprise. They will lead the clinic it embarks on a major project building a new 65,000-square-foot clinic in downtown Pawhuska that will sit where the old Safeway grocery and Moore’s hardware store are now. Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear told the board that bids to demolish the old Safeway are due on Oct. 26 – and that change should be coming soon.
“We’ll tear it down but you guys have to build something,” the chief said.
