: About Me

I've worn quite a few hats in my days: carnie, food vendor in a baseball stadium stands, secretary, line worker at a bagel shop and barista, short-order cook, pizza delivery driver and telemarketer, to name a few.

Those were my jobs, but I've had two professions. Until a few years ago, I was a newspaper health editor and reporter. Now, I wear a nurse's cap as a RN.

How I went from reporter to nurse is not as far of a leap as it seems. I had worked as many types of reporter from age 16 to age 21. I'd been on the police beat, covered high school wrestling and covered the heart of the Midwest's reaction and life after 9/11. All the while, I had dabbled in health care news, as that was my real passion. I was hired onto the Monroe Evening News in 2004 as the health editor. There I rubbed elbows with doctors and nurses on a daily basis, learning the lingo and the ways of their world.

After covering a six-year-old girl's liver transplant and many other health stories, I covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I knew my days as a reporter were numbered. I had already won two Michigan Associated Press awards; I had reached my pinnacle.

In 2006, I decided it was time to go to nursing school and become on what I had reported.

Despite my satisfaction with life as a nurse, I can't keep down the reporter in me. I still write columns, and am beginning to dabble in news again. You can take the girl out of the newspaper, but you can't take the news out of the girl.

It may look silly, but who says you can't wear two hats at once?

I am currently working on a major writing venture called "The Night Shift Project," which can be found on the Web at www.thenightshiftproject.com.

Please find me on the Web at stacykess.wordpress.com, or find sample articles at featurefreelanceonline.com.

My passion is ...

health care.

I know too much about ...

pathophysiology of the human body.

My parents always told me ...

to remember the Little Engine that Could.

My childhood ambition ...

was to live in a log cabin.

Why I write ...

to inform.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

The Blood Brothers.

My first job ...

was as a carnival worker.

My best moment ...

was at the nursing school pinning ceremony.

My inspiration ...

is my patients.

Health & Fitness > Infectious Diseases The H1N1 recap: Understanding the medical science behind infection control measures

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It's a war, one with everything from high tech weapons to basic battle techniques. It's the H1N1 flu and the science behind infection control. "It's keeping infections from spreading from one person to another," said University of Michigan Clinical Associate Professor Sandro Cinti, who works in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine. "And infection control depends entirely on how a bacteria, fungus, organism is transmitted. So there are different procedures for something that is spread through contact, and something that is spread through the air like in...

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