Schmieding Center Employee Finds Purpose Working at “Best-Kept Secret in Northwest Arkansas”
| Monique Parks feels blessed to go to work each day and help people who are facing the same challenges she once struggled with.
An administrative coordinator at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education in Springdale, Parks works daily with older adults and their caregivers to help them discover ways to live their lives to the fullest.
She admits, though, that her outlook was not always so cheery.
Around the same time that Parks and her husband both lost their jobs in 2008, her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Parks assumed the role of caregiver, even though she had no training and no experience with the debilitating disease.
“Our lives were turned upside down,” Parks said. “We lost our jobs. We lost our house. We lost everything. On top of all this, my mom was battling Parkinson’s. It was all so devastating. But I told my mom, ‘We can sit here and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can get up and go, and I’m choosing to get up and go. So, you let me know what you want to do.’”
Parks recalls that at the time, she really didn’t want to “get up and go.” She said she just wanted to curl up in a fetal position.
“I mean, it’s hard enough when you don’t work,” Parks said. “But when you have to work full time and be a full-time caregiver, it’s really tough. I would work all day, and then I would go home at night and sit in my closet crying because I didn’t want my mom to see me and how I was struggling.”
At this time, Parks had started working at the Centers for Children. At first, she said, they didn’t want to hire her because they didn’t think she’d stay. They thought she’d leave as soon as soon as she had the opportunity to make better money.
“And I didn’t make great money there,” Parks said, “but I did great things, and I loved it. It just was a really difficult time though. I loved Centers for Children because my son had asthma as a child, and I loved all the doctors, and I loved the medical field.”
Through the course of her work, she met Natalie Wood, who was the assistant to Larry Wright, M.D., at the UAMS Schmieding Senior Center (Wright is now the attending physician at the UAMS Internal Medicine Clinic at Butterfield Trail Village).
Parks said that Wood told her that she was going to work with her someday.
“She kept my resume for years,” Parks said. “She ran across my husband one time and said, ‘Look, your wife’s resume has been sitting here for the last three years.’”
When a position became available, Wood called Parks and asked if she wanted to come in for an interview.
“I came in and met Dr. Wright, and I absolutely adored him,” Parks sad. “He is one of the greatest doctors. One of the greatest men. I mean, he just has compassion. He was always like, ‘Put your family first.’ I thought, ‘Oh, this is my dream job.’”
Parks now feels like she works at the best-kept secret in Northwest Arkansas.
“I remember saying, ‘I’m so blessed to work here because all this time I was navigating trying to care for my mother and everything we were going through, no one ever told me about the Schmieding Center.’”
Parks wants to get the word out about the Schmieding Center because she knows there are people out there like her, both in the community and even within UAMS, who are trying to work and take care of someone who is suffering with Alzheimer’s, dementia or Parkinson’s.
“I could have had help years ago,” Parks said. “My outcome would have been totally different, and my mom’s outcome would have been different, if I would have had Brandi Schneider [director of administration and aging services] to help me. Now I feel so blessed to work here because I can help people to not have the story my mom and I had.
“Even though they have a diagnosis of something like that, it is possible to live well with that diagnosis. It’s a mindset. And we’re able to help these people, whether it be programs or helping them find an elder law attorney or talking to a social worker or getting services. It would have been instrumental in my story and my mom’s story. The good news is that you can live well with Parkinson’s. I wish somebody would have told me that.”
While Parks’ mom passed away in February 2018, her legacy lives on in the work being done at the UAMS Schmieding Senior Center.
For example, there is a four-part series with Washington Regional Medical Center where experts come in and talk about four evidence-based elements of aging well. These are known as the “4Ms: What Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility.”
“They teach you how to live well with Parkinson’s,” Parks said. “They bring the PT team in. They teach you about healthy eating and show you different equipment that you can use throughout your journey. They go through the whole thing. They explain it all. It’s like Parkinson’s 101.”
Parks and Schnieder also co-facilitate a Parkinson’s support group for caregivers and the person with Parkinson’s. Sometimes they split up and talk to them from just a caregiver’s standpoint, which Parks can relate to from personal experience.
They also have a “Parkinson’s Social,” where patients and their caregivers come in and play games and just socialize.
“We had a lady who came to the social about three or four weeks ago,” Parks said, “and she said, ‘I didn’t want to be with anybody and see what my future was like.’ Now she’s coming to everything. She doesn’t miss anything. So many times, these people are isolated. And that was mom’s problem too. She was so isolated. Here you get to come and be with other people, and it’s been so good to see the growth. They have this little group. They care about each other.”
The center is also getting a good response to a program called “Drums Aive for Parkinson’s,” which is facilitated by Rene Garcia Oliver, a nurse educator.
“I really don’t feel like my mom’s gone some days because I’m doing so many things to help other people in her memory,” Parks said. “And sometimes I feel like she’s right by me. And when I have a good day and I can help somebody, it just gives my life purpose.”
To learn more about the Schmieding Center’s programs, visit uamscaregiving.org/springdale/.