Emergency Services nursing director leads with compassion

This is part of MUSC's 2024 Women's History Month series. For more coverage, please see links at the bottom of this story.

When Beth Vlahavas, R.N., first entered college, she considered a career in teaching. After shadowing a teacher in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, she quickly decided it wasn’t a fulfilling choice for her. Instead, she worked in her family’s restaurant business, where she enjoyed making people happy, meeting their basic needs and making them feel comfortable. This realization led to her new career path. 

“I equated waitressing with nursing,” she said. “With nursing, I can help people in a more meaningful way.”

Now that Vlahavas had a career direction, she enrolled in nursing school and spent summers in Colorado at her uncle’s pharmacies, where she learned about disease processes and how to talk to patients.

“All that played into wanting to help people,” she said.

Following her graduation from the University Hospital of Brooklyn at Long Island College Hospital, she chose to remain in the infectious disease unit as a nurse, caring for AIDS patients. Despite the reluctance of others to fill these roles, she said she embraced the opportunity wholeheartedly. 

Never one to step away from where she’s most needed, she next went to a small neurological ICU unit, and then to an inner-city hospital: Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

Vlahavas remained at Wyckoff ambulatory care clinics for 13 years. She says emergency services have always been her passion because of the adrenaline rush and the variety of cases. 

“You never know what’s coming through the doors,” she said. 

Vlahavas has held emergency services department positions from staff nurse to charge nurse to various administrative roles, including her current one as divisional nursing director, MUSC Health-Pee Dee Division. 

She came to MUSC in July of 2021 from South Bronx. Initially working at the Florence campus only, she now is emergency director for Black River and Marion, as well. 

While it may seem like a culture shock to move from New York City to South Carolina, Vlahavas sees a lot of parallels between her patients there and here. In both places, she’s primarily taken care of underserved patients.

In fact, an experience she had in Brooklyn continues to have an impact on her staff at MUSC.

When she was working at Wyckoff in pediatric emergency care, she had a young female patient who regularly came to the center for every medical issue because she and her mother had limited resources. A few years later, the young woman had children of her own and brought them to Wyckoff for their health care. Recognizing that the woman needed guidance, Vlahavas spent a lot of time educating and talking to her, eventually helping her to access basic medical care through the proper channels. 

“By the time I left, she had stopped using the Emergency Department as primary care,” Vlahavas said. “We were able to work through that.”

From then on, the young woman did come back to the Emergency Department but only to visit Vlahavas and thank her.

“That’s always really stuck with me,” Vlahavas said. “I like to remember that story and instill those values in the staff we have here.”

She did just that when a young autistic man was abandoned by his mother at the Florence Emergency Department. The potentially dire situation took a remarkable turn for the better when Vlahavas introduced an alternative approach: embracing compassion.

“That really prompted a whole culture change in the Emergency Department,” she said. 

The staff started to care for the young man’s well-being, going above and beyond the call of duty. They pooled their money to buy the young man a Kindle, came in on their days off to spend time with him and brought him lunch. After a few months, when he was placed in a group home in Columbia, the staff threw him a going-away party. 

Vlahavas calls this a “connect to purpose” story, one that could serve as a good example for future nurses. She’s also serving as a clinical adjunct instructor at Coker University in Hartsville, teaching eight students. Her ultimate goal is to bring nurses into the profession in general and to MUSC Health in particular. “Redeveloping the workforce is the biggest challenge nationwide,” she said.

If anyone can inspire future nurses to enter the profession, Vlahavas can. 

“Beth is an outstanding leader who constantly champions positive change,” said Pee Dee Division chief nursing officer Costa K. Cockfield, R.N. “Her focus on streamlining patient flow and optimizing resource utilization while keeping the patient in the center of every decision makes her successful. Her positive attributes allow her to navigate the complex and fast-paced environment of the Emergency Department with finesse, ultimately contributing to the well-being of the communities we serve.”