Carolyn Baugham Gaffney's Carolyn Baugham has been named the 2006 Nurse of the Year for Interim HealthCare. Baugham, a nurse for the past 10 years, has been involved with the hospice care for only one year.

"When I heard about it three weeks ago, I was stunned," Baugham said. "I was proud, but stunned. I had no idea I had even been nominated."

Interim HealthCare is a home care company with nearly 350 offices in the United States. Interim corporately employs 75,000 compassionate caregivers a year. The company's professionals and paraprofessionals provide care and compassion to nearly 50,000 people on any given day.

"This year Interim HealthCare chose a well deserving hospice nurse," said Rhonda Moody, a spokesperson for the company. "We as a company are blessed each day by the commitment of thousands of individual nurses across this country to bring care and comfort to our patients and clients. Carolyn represents the best of nursing in Interim HealthCare."

Interim HealthCare Hospice provides end-of-life care in Cherokee, Spartanburg and Union counties. Interim HealthCare of Spartanburg has provided home care services for 27 years and has been a Hospice provider for 10 years.

"Carolyn manages a full caseload of patients for hospice," said Nancy Dereng, Baugham's supervisor. "She has established herself as an expert in the hospice field in her community. Hospice takes pride in Carolyn's ability to move a family from dependence to independence in caregiving through a comprehensive and customized training plan. She believes everyone has the capacity to provide care for their loved one with the right support. With this in mind, she takes charge of coordinating all the necessary care for a patient including volunteers, respite care, medication management and spiritual counselors. The Hospice staff know that they and the hospice patients can always count on Carolyn to be there when you need her to be and to do her care with a servant's heart."

The heart of a servant and that dedication are what Baugham credits as the keys to her success.

"Working in Hospice takes more than just skill and education," she said. "You have to have a real heart for it. You can't treat Hospice as just a job. I do this today because, when both my parents died from cancer, I knew I could count on the Hospice nurses to be there. It was such a relief to know that

help was just a phone call away. I told myself then that someday, I'd help others the way they helped me. This isn't just a job, it is a calling."