On Thursday, November 14, 2024, Fox Chase Cancer Center announced the inaugural cohort of STAR Award winners. STAR – Special Talent Achieving Results – is the new quarterly employee recognition event designed to highlight excellence in achieving the organizational goals, leadership competencies, and core values of Fox Chase.
As mentioned in the October 29 Town Hall, employee recognition is a foundational part of what makes Fox Chase unique. The STAR Award is part of the new Fox Chase Recognition Program to honor employees for excellence in performance. It replaces the Special Contributor Award and will be bestowed on a quarterly basis in each of the following categories: Excellence in Administration, Excellence in Management, Excellence in Patient Support, and Excellence in Research Support.
“Employee recognition conveys the message that we are all working together to advance our mission of discovery and delivery,” said Robert Uzzo, MD, MBA, FACS, Fox Chase’s President and Chief Executive Officer, in a ceremony in the Fox Chase Cafeteria.
“There are contributions to make in every part of our Center, but this work is not done to seek accolades or favor, it is about quietly and steadily doing all that you can to make our patients’ lives better,” Uzzo said. “I feel very strongly about recognizing people who excel in this way, and our STAR honorees exemplify this idea.”
The new employee recognition plan was developed by Human Resources with the support of the CHEER – Cultivating High Engagement and Employee Recognition – Committee, co-chaired by Amanda Purdy, PhD, Associate Chief Academic Officer, Joshua Lahav, AVP, Cancer Center Operations, Jeremy Moore, AVP, Communications, and Towanda Record, AVP, Strategic Human Resources. The mission of CHEER is to “...enhance employee satisfaction, improve retention rates, and create a culture of recognition and appreciation.”
“Employee recognition is becoming part of our operational rhythm,” said Joel Helmke, MSHP, FACHE, Fox Chase’s Chief Operating Officer, at the event. “By calling out greatness, we get to reflect on where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.”
While the STAR Awards are quarterly, with each winner eligible for an annual Key Contributors Award, the new plan calls for an entire recognition portfolio that recognizes both managers and individual staff contributors, from annual events to the weekly “We Are Fox Chase” notes to on-the-spot awards from managers and kudos on The Hub from colleagues.
The first set of employees recognized through the STAR Award program include:
- Kerri McGuire – Excellence in Administration
- Tatiana Villamarin – Excellence in Management
- Christine Amoroso – Excellence in Patient Support
- Rebecca Smith – Excellence in Research Support
2nd Place Winners:
- Leigh-Anne Spilman – Excellence in Administration
- Sarah Porzig – Excellence in Management
- Elena Dreyzin – Excellence in Patient Support
- Catherine Neumann – Excellence in Research Support
3rd Place Winners:
- Dana Haagen – Excellence in Administration
- Jessica Peralta – Excellence in Management
- Adrienne Pitts-Ravenell – Excellence in Patient Support
- Courtney Lambert – Excellence in Research Support
Kerri McGuire, BSN, RN, OCN – Excellence in Administration
McGuire was just about to head into surgery – her own Achilles tendon surgery, in fact – when her manager, Jennie Gilliland, BSN, RN, OCN, surprised her with the news that she was the inaugural winner of the Excellence in Administration award.
“Jennie sent me a screenshot of the award and I was totally shocked,” McGuire recalled. “I thought this is really what I needed to hear just before surgery; really good healing juju, for sure.”
Vibes aside, McGuire was recognized for her outstanding work in Infusion Services, in what is her first managerial role. According to Gilliland’s nomination, McGuire’s organizational efforts have been a deciding factor in the success of the entire team during a very busy, challenging year.
McGuire is known to work one-on-one with team members to get them up to speed on changes to electronic records and scheduling. She keeps staff educated on evolving processes, and tirelessly takes part in committees and working groups to streamline all aspects of care, in fine Fox Chase tradition.
“Kerri understands the big picture,” Gilliland wrote. “She knows that it takes a dynamic team to make change.”
As for McGuire, she understands the value of being recognized for her efforts.
“Just in general, the STAR Award will be so beneficial in honoring those who do great work behind the scenes,” McGuire said. “People don’t know the impact they have and this award is an excellent way to show it.”
Tatiana Villamarin, BSN, RN – Excellence in Management
When Villamarin, a Clinical Manager in the Department of Urology, first learned of the award, her thoughts went immediately to her colleagues.
“It was humbling and I immediately thought of my urology team who I am fortunate to work with,” Villamarin said. “My role is incredibly meaningful as it allows me to do what I love – being a nurse – while also contributing to our team’s operations.”
Her leadership and devotion to her team is one of her most outstanding qualities as a manager, according to her manager and nominator, Erin Longstreth, MSN, RN, OCN. She cites Villamarin’s ability to guide her team compassionately in a complex, high-volume practice as one of the reasons for their success.
“She acknowledges and encourages employees’ initiative to enhance their skills and contributions, demonstrating genuine appreciation and understanding for their efforts,” Longstreth wrote. “Her positive attitude and respectful, fair, and transparent management style humanize the workplace, treating employees as individuals with unique needs and aspirations.”
Christine Amoroso, BSN, RN, OCN – Excellence in Patient Support
A nurse at Fox Chase since 1987, Amoroso’s compassion and expertise in patient care is part of the very fabric that weaves the Center together. Amoroso is a nurse in the Ambulatory Care Huntingdon Pike Urology office, which she joined in 2017. She credits the growth of Urology at Fox Chase directly to the level of care the team provides patients.
“Everyone from the nurses to the physicians, medical assistants to the front desk staff shares a common work ethic, and the compassion provided to our patients is palpable,” Amoroso said. “The patients know that they are a priority when they are here; they know that they matter.”
Her manager, Rebecca Farrell, MSN, RN, AGCNI, nominated Amoroso due to her resourcefulness as well as her compassion, which is in no short supply. For example, despite a nationwide BCG shortage – a standard treatment option for invasive bladder cancer – Amoroso developed a plan to schedule patients in groups to avoid wasting the vaccine. As a result, no patients have missed their treatment.
According to Farrell, Amoroso is a valued member of the staff who has taken seriously her role in advancing nursing medicine. Amoroso serves not just as a mentor and educator for her colleagues and team members, but also contributes to nursing science on a national level by presenting new knowledge and best practices at national conferences. Most importantly, however, is how she leads by example in setting standards for patient care.
“She prioritizes relationship-building with our patients because the nature of their bladder cancer treatment is very sensitive, so she wants to build trust from day one,” wrote Farrell in her nomination. “She has an innate ability to make our patients feel at home during one of the worst times in their lives.”
Amoroso, meanwhile, speaks for her colleagues across the Cancer Center in describing the new STAR Award program.
“We do not work for recognition, but sometimes it does confirm that we are doing something special,” Amoroso said. “It energizes us to continue to grow and to achieve a higher level of care that benefits our patients.”
Rebecca Smith – Excellence in Research Support
Rebecca Smith is a scientific technician and laboratory manager for Yu “Sunny” Liu, PhD, an Assistant Professor and member of the Cancer Epigenetics Institute. When Liu first arrived at Fox Chase in August of 2023, Smith – a recent graduate from Delaware Valley University with a bachelor’s degree in animal science – was his first hire.
According to Liu’s nomination, Smith proved to be an ideal lab manager for a team starting from scratch with a combination of tenacity and problem-solving abilities. Moreover, Smith has developed as an expert technician and cancer scientist in her own right.
“Although she joined with limited background in genomics, epigenetics, and cell biology, her passion and dedication to science and cancer research have enabled her to learn remarkably quickly,” Liu wrote. “She has now mastered essential techniques in our lab, including Hi-C, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, Western blotting, and cell culture. In less than a year, she has generated more than 200 Hi-C, ChIP-seq, and ATAC-seq libraries, contributing billions of high-quality next-generation sequencing reads to our projects.”
According to Liu, Smith has already presented her work at three conferences, to some acclaim, and is spearheading a review article on 3D genome organization and its implications in cancer.
In addition to her scientific acumen, Liu credits Smith for her natural leadership and mentoring abilities. In the last year, she has trained two laboratory technicians and has developed a training module for visiting high school and undergraduate students.
In turn, Smith pointed to the nurturing environment Liu created in the laboratory as fundamentally inspiring. “My boss, Dr. Yu ‘Sunny’ Liu, is the best manager and support system an employee could have,” explained Smith. “Being the first member, Sunny involved me in every single interview process from technicians to postdocs, to make sure that I felt the person would fit the motivating, supportive culture that we are aiming to create in the lab.”
In regards to the new STAR Award program, Smith was honored to be an inaugural recipient stating that having a recognition program is important for an institute like Fox Chase, in which every person in each department works together towards the common goal of fighting cancer.
“This institute is special, as patients are being treated and research is being conducted all in the same building, while those in management and administration work so hard behind the scenes to coordinate everything and ensure everything is running smoothly,” Smith said. “I think the STAR Award can give recognition to those in the behind-the-scenes positions, who work tirelessly each day and deserve to be publicly appreciated for their important contributions.”
“Quite simply, better engagement often leads to more meaningful work, and this translates to greater success in our mission,” said Jonathan Chernoff, MD, PhD, Cancer Center Director at Fox Chase, during the ceremony. “This is something that we have implicitly known at Fox Chase from our earliest days. The spirit of collaboration here, and the value we place on mentorship and collegiality, are hallmarks of our institution.”