Meet Angela Kik, BSN, CEN, EMT, a current Nurse Consultant and Emergency Response Section Supervisor for the Emergency Preparedness and Response Branch of the Kentucky Department for Public Health’s (KDPH) Cabinet for Health and Family Services, in Frankfort, KY, which is one of the foundational public health services in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
A day in the life
As a trained public health nurse consultant, some of the duties in this role include fit testing and offering train-the-trainer fit testing classes at health departments and other departments; participating on the COVID mortality review team, reviewing state level preparedness plans such as the Special Pathogen (Ebola) plan, participating in state-level and local exercises to ensure community readiness, and more.
Angela also leads patient tracking for Kentucky. She has brought together a diverse group of EMS, hospital, and EM personnel, and mapped outpatient tracking for multi-causality incidents.
“I worked with the CEO of Readyop to develop the platform that we use across the state. Several other states now use the platform for their state patient tracking,” says Angela. “Patient tracking helps load balance patients across regions and enhances local facilities’ ability to do family reunification. I am extremely proud of this achievement.”
Angela is a subject matter expert on many activations such as Tularemia, Hep A and COVID. She was the State Health Operations Center manager for MPOX activation. Angela also leads the Incident Management Team and acts as the Operations Section Chief and Emergency Support Function (ESF) #8 Lead when activated by the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC).
Angela is the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Fatality Management Domain lead for Kentucky and works with the State Medical Examiner and Coroner’s Association on preparedness issues and processes.
In addition, Angela is the Coordinator for the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) Region IV Unified Planning Coalition. Each month, the Region IV Federal Partners, PHEP, HPP and lead preparedness personnel for each of the FEMA Region IV states, meet to discuss common issues across states. When a disaster has occurred, or may occur, they discuss sending assets (such as strike teams) through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) and provide situational awareness for partners.
With that in mind, Angela is also the Nurse Strike Team leader for Kentucky. This involves managing the EMAC process and mission ready packages for the preparedness branch.
The nurse strike team has been deployed three times under Angela’s leadership, which included deploying to North Carolina’s Hurricane Florence in 2018 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Angela also deployed with the Environmental strike team to Florida for Hurricane Ian and was the logistics lead, along with another member of the public health IMT, ensuring the FEMA paperwork was completed.
Being a visionary and having a plan
Angela believes community partnerships and communications are fundamental and the bedrock of everything they work on. It is also important to think big and be a visionary.
“I want people to think about imagining the unimaginable,” says Angela. “If we can’t do this, it is hard to plan for when a good day turns really bad. If we do not plan well, then our communities will not be prepared when the next disaster happens.”
Angela also believes that hope is not a plan and that you must plan for all hazards. This was certainly put to the test with recent disasters in Kentucky and COVID.
“Who would have thought that our state would have a tornado a few weeks before Christmas in Western Kentucky or an historic flood in Eastern Kentucky? Who would have thought we would have a COVID Pandemic activation for 3 years or had to build a 2000 bed alternate care site as a result?” says Angela. “We were involved in both activations and responses. We fortunately never had to use the alternate site, but it was ready to go because we had a plan.”
During the national disasters, Angela actively worked with the national guard and helped to build the infrastructure and alternate care site. She also helped to bring in Federal Medical teams for hospitals during the Delta surge and worked with the national guard non-medical teams across the state at several different hospitals.
Early Nursing Influences
Originally from Danville, Kentucky, Angela’s 30+ year nursing career began with her mother who was a nurse at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center and became one of Angela’s biggest influences in her life.
“I grew up in a hospital and remember sitting in the nurses’ lounge doing homework when my mother, a single mom, would have to come and get me from school when I was sick,” says Angela. “I was always fascinated by healthcare and taking care of people.”
This fascination for nursing was further embraced by other folks in the community when they saw Angela’s mother.
“I thought my mother knew everyone because anywhere we would go, someone would always tell her thank you for taking such good care of them,” says Angela. “That really made a significant impact on me at an early age.”
From that point forward, Angela knew she wanted to be a nurse or a teacher. At that time, she saw them as the same profession because they complimented each other so well.
Angela recalls seeing a Blackhawk landing and offloading patients in Louisville, Kentucky, one day which sparked her interest in becoming a flight nurse.
Nursing & Public Health
After leaving Vanderbilt Lifeflight as a Flight RN4 in 2011, Angela joined Baptist Health Lexington as an ER nurse and manager. She also began attending the healthcare coalition meetings in Lexington.
“Since I was new to the facility, I got the pleasure of attending the coalition meetings that nobody really wanted to attend; however, they were fascinating to me,” says Angela. “It was attended by local emergency management, hospital staff, EMS staff, health departments, long-term care facilities and several others. The wheels started turning concerning how much could be accomplished with all the right people in the room.”
For Angela, this is when she first experienced emergency preparedness and response.
“In those days, preparedness wasn’t really considered responding but it was in my mind,” says Angela. “I wanted to learn more, so I started attending classes in Anniston Alabama at the Center for Domestic Preparedness and Toxic Chemical Class in Maryland. I was hooked by then. In the hospital, I helped one patient at a time but by being a part of public health preparedness, I could help whole communities!”
Behind the Scenes
Sometimes public health and nursing, including emergency preparedness, can be unseen and not known by the public. To Angela, what they do is not for recognition – it’s because they want to protect the health of people.
“The behind-the-scenes preparations is not known by the public. In fact, my mother still doesn’t really understand what I do sometimes,” says Angela. “I am so proud of our branch, and the time and energy we all put in without expecting any recognition.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, we worked 7 days a week for a few months to ensure that the health departments, healthcare in general, and public had answers to their questions. This was an extremely stressful period for public health including our branch, but we pushed through and did our jobs.” '
DEAL Day 2023
The Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH) and CPH collaborated this year to provide DEAL Day (Discover, Experience, Apply, and Learn), an opportunity for students to explore different areas of the public health system at Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services in Frankfort, KY.
Part of this experience, was touring the state's facilities and laboratories, including the emergency preparedness and response warehouse. Angela's team led these tours and provided great insights for UK public health students.
In addition, students took advantage of interacting with the KDPH leadership team, learning more about health equity and policy, along with demonstrations and discussions of food safety, the mobile harm reduction and mobile pharmacy units.
Building on 30+years of experience
Angela is currently building on 30+years of working in nursing, healthcare, and teaching, along with serving others in public health. Some of her best moments and achievements include:
“Working in a shelter is so rewarding for everyone on the team,” says Angela. “Shelter residents may have lost everything, but we can show them that we care and can give them a little bit of light and peace.” “We ensured that they could take showers and obtain their medications and medical equipment. We would sit with them and just listen and hold their hands. We would play with the children and play games with the older population. It is always good for the soul to give back,” adds Angela.
“Working in a shelter is so rewarding for everyone on the team,” says Angela. “Shelter residents may have lost everything, but we can show them that we care and can give them a little bit of light and peace.”
“We ensured that they could take showers and obtain their medications and medical equipment. We would sit with them and just listen and hold their hands. We would play with the children and play games with the older population. It is always good for the soul to give back,” adds Angela.
Saving A Life
Angela has been involved in a myriad of code blues, but there is a 6-year-old boy that she will never forget.
“He was involved in a car accident on I-75 and was ejected from the vehicle. His grandmother and aunt were killed. We landed on the interstate and the paramedic came running towards the helicopter carrying him. I took him and we quickly lifted to head towards the University of Kentucky (UK). He was unconscious with a displaced skull fracture. We had to put a breathing tube in for him, and administer a few medications to help with the swelling. We had him at UK less than an hour from the time of the accident, which is the ‘gold hour’ for survival. Six hours later, we delivered another patient to UK, and I went and checked on him. His mother was at his bedside and the boy was talking to her. She told me that it took her several years to get pregnant and he was going to be her only child. I told her that he has a special purpose in life. I took him a large teddy bear the next day. He survived and was discharged several days later. This still makes me cry when I think about it.”
“He was involved in a car accident on I-75 and was ejected from the vehicle. His grandmother and aunt were killed. We landed on the interstate and the paramedic came running towards the helicopter carrying him. I took him and we quickly lifted to head towards the University of Kentucky (UK).
He was unconscious with a displaced skull fracture. We had to put a breathing tube in for him, and administer a few medications to help with the swelling. We had him at UK less than an hour from the time of the accident, which is the ‘gold hour’ for survival. Six hours later, we delivered another patient to UK, and I went and checked on him.
His mother was at his bedside and the boy was talking to her. She told me that it took her several years to get pregnant and he was going to be her only child. I told her that he has a special purpose in life. I took him a large teddy bear the next day. He survived and was discharged several days later. This still makes me cry when I think about it.”
Career Advice
To Angela, nurses are patient advocates. Nursing, serving in public health, and helping others is a calling – it's a duty. However, some things can and can’t be learned.
“I would encourage anyone who wants an exciting and diverse career to go into public health and/or nursing,” says Angela. “There are many things that cannot be learned such as the caring part of nursing but if you want to make a difference in one life or whole communities, this is the career for you!”
Angela emphasizes that public health nursing and community health nursing are similar. Both would benefit from clinical experience in a hospital setting before specializing, giving the nurse a well-rounded understanding of healthcare delivery system.
“The public health nurse integrates community involvement and knowledge about the population into clinical understanding of families’ health experiences,” says Angela. “There are many different roles a nurse can do in public health such as preparedness (what I do), clinic work, disease focused, immunization nurse, administration, and more.”
“Nurses Make a Difference: Anytime, Anywhere – Always!”
That is the theme of this year’s National Nursing Celebration Month. For Angela, it is the nurses who ensure that healthcare is delivered safely.
“Nurses are there when you are born and are there holding your hand when you die,” says Angela. “We touch peoples’ lives during every milestone such as infancy, childhood, adulthood, and geriatric. Healthcare and education do not just happen in the four walls of a building. Nurses provide care in peoples’ homes, places of employment, and in the streets of communities.”
Nurses are everywhere. Nurses, like Angela, give CPR in a Walmart parking lot while on deployment for Hurricane Ian. They go with the National Guard to the hills of Eastern Kentucky and jails to give Hep A immunizations.
“It is my job to care for people where they are and that is what public health does,” says Angela. “Public health is meeting people where they are in life and improving their circumstances. This may not happen overnight, but I have seen communities improve because of their public health system. I am immensely proud to be a public health nurse!”
Fulfilling a dream
Angela Kik is a BSN nurse with approximately 30 years of experience in emergency and intensive care medicine with 11 years of domestic and international flight experience.
She was previously an emergency department director and trauma director for a level 3 trauma hospital and served as the chair for a healthcare coalition within Kentucky working closely with the coalition coordinator and regional field staff to ensure all preparedness training and exercises were completed.
Angela received her ADN and BSN degrees from Midway University, which fulfilled her dream of growing up in advancing her knowledge (and passion) for nursing and teaching – the “best of both worlds” according to Angela.
Angela even wrote a paper once titled “Nursing is Caring and Caring is Nursing.”
“A nurse touches someone’s life during their darkest moment and brings them light,” says Angela. “Even if the patient dies, the nurse can help the family through this period”
One of Angela’s favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
