Kari Bunke
June 2026
Kari
Bunke
,
BSN, RN
Avera St. Luke's
Aberdeen
,
SD
United States
Kari is a great teacher and mentor to all of us staff nurses, as we continue to learn and grow every day.
You might say to yourself, how does one nurse manage over 36 dialysis patients?
Some of our patients travel a long distance, over sixty miles one way, three times a week, to come to their dialysis treatments. Kari's day starts off with managing our patients' lab draws, reconciling their medications for their treatments, reaching out to the providers to report the condition of our patients, and then coordinating their care through our ER or calling to arrange a same-day surgical procedure for our patients, depending on the situation.
Not to mention all of the time and attention dedicated to the scheduling of our patients' chair times. Only to get multiple calls a day from our patients to "Please ask Kari to move my chair time and day, I have a doctor's appointment, a procedure, an important family event, or I am just too sick to come to my treatment today," and she still handles all of this day-to-day operation with a sense of grace and calmness about her.
Kari is a great teacher and mentor to all of us staff nurses, as we continue to learn and grow every day.
"Go get Kari, we need her!"
"Kari, do we recirculate or restring? We need your help!"
Kari stops what she is doing; she never hesitates to come and help. She never makes you feel intimidated or inadequate. As a leader should, she guides you, but in a way so that you can learn how to solve those issues when they happen.
Dialysis patients are fragile, and death can come at any time. Sometimes in our unit, death can come during a treatment. Kari is the voice on the phone when she calls our patients' loved ones to deliver heart-wrenching news. Many times, with tears in her eyes. If there were no tears, there would be no love.
Kari doesn't hesitate to gather us together so that we can talk openly about the event and talk about our emotions.
Kari then ends her day after all of the patients are safely discharged home, finishing up those quality and end-of-day reports, and knowing that all of those sticky note messages are handled for the day. After all, we would do it for family, and our dialysis patients become our family.
We are truly blessed to have her as our leader.
Some of our patients travel a long distance, over sixty miles one way, three times a week, to come to their dialysis treatments. Kari's day starts off with managing our patients' lab draws, reconciling their medications for their treatments, reaching out to the providers to report the condition of our patients, and then coordinating their care through our ER or calling to arrange a same-day surgical procedure for our patients, depending on the situation.
Not to mention all of the time and attention dedicated to the scheduling of our patients' chair times. Only to get multiple calls a day from our patients to "Please ask Kari to move my chair time and day, I have a doctor's appointment, a procedure, an important family event, or I am just too sick to come to my treatment today," and she still handles all of this day-to-day operation with a sense of grace and calmness about her.
Kari is a great teacher and mentor to all of us staff nurses, as we continue to learn and grow every day.
"Go get Kari, we need her!"
"Kari, do we recirculate or restring? We need your help!"
Kari stops what she is doing; she never hesitates to come and help. She never makes you feel intimidated or inadequate. As a leader should, she guides you, but in a way so that you can learn how to solve those issues when they happen.
Dialysis patients are fragile, and death can come at any time. Sometimes in our unit, death can come during a treatment. Kari is the voice on the phone when she calls our patients' loved ones to deliver heart-wrenching news. Many times, with tears in her eyes. If there were no tears, there would be no love.
Kari doesn't hesitate to gather us together so that we can talk openly about the event and talk about our emotions.
Kari then ends her day after all of the patients are safely discharged home, finishing up those quality and end-of-day reports, and knowing that all of those sticky note messages are handled for the day. After all, we would do it for family, and our dialysis patients become our family.
We are truly blessed to have her as our leader.