November Employee of the Month enjoys caring for everyone in our community
Ty Hamilton is Boone Hospital Center’s Employee of the Month for November 2014. Click here to nominate someone for Employee of the Month.
As a respiratory therapist, Ty Hamilton’s skills are needed on every inpatient unit at Boone Hospital Center.
“We work with the entire population, from neonates to geriatrics,” he says. “One day I may be in the labor and delivery unit watching someone being born and then, that same night, taking care of someone near the end of life.”
Ty’s role involves, as he puts it, “anything having to do with breathing,” a range that goes from treating patients for asthma or allergic reactions to running a patient’s life support equipment.
Born and raised in southeast Missouri, Ty came to Columbia as a student at the University of Missouri Columbia. He first experienced Boone Hospital Center while shadowing respiratory therapists, after he decided he wanted to enter the University’s respiratory therapy program.
Ty found he liked living in Columbia, particularly for its diversity. After graduating, he applied for a respiratory therapist position and joined the Boone Hospital Center team in January 2002.
Ty has worked on the night shift all 12 years, but he doesn’t mind it. “It took a while to get acclimated to it,” he says, “But it’s not bad.”
Among the many reasons he likes working at Boone Hospital Center, Ty says he enjoys caring for a variety of patients.
“I like the infusion of people from the community,” Ty says. “The patients who come here like this hospital. They brag about this hospital. And you build a rapport with some patients.”
He also enjoys the teamwork both in the respiratory therapy department and across all areas of the hospital, from patient care to maintenance, in taking care of patients.
Ty enjoys spending most of his free time with his children, Taylor and Kyren, fishing in conservation areas around mid-Missouri, and watching basketball games.
Above all, Ty says that he takes prides in being part of Boone Hospital Center. “It’s been wonderful watching Boone grow,” he says. “That’s one of the best things about working here.”