June MVP — April Wurtz

By Ben Boulden

April Wurtz, left, MVP for June 2023, stops for a photo with UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, moments after he surprised her with the award.

April Wurtz, left, MVP for June 2023, stops for a photo with UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, moments after he surprised her with the award.

safety. Please read what one of her nominators wrote about how she does that:

April is one of our star radiation dosimetrists who develops radiation treatment plans behind the scenes for our cancer patients.

She is an extremely positive, upbeat individual who greets everyone with a smile and is one of the ‘rocks’ in our department. She is focused on patient safety and works with all the physicians and physicists in our department to create excellent treatments that benefit our patients.

Because dosimetrists like April work behind the scenes, I sometimes feel they are overlooked but are an essential part of our cancer team and deserve to be recognized! April often works early mornings and late evenings to finish complex radiation treatment plans so that our head and neck cancer patients can start treatment as soon as possible.

She helps run our department’s ‘Fun-Shine’ committee that recognizes birthdays and other important milestones of our co-workers. She helps organize gifts for our coworkers to recognize these moments of joy but also in unexpected moments of hardship or suffering. She also helped organize intra-departmental basketball games that brought our department closer together and pitted residents, attendings, physicists, and radiation biologists against each other in fun. She has an outstanding work ethic and is our MVP!

UAMS will recognize April in several ways as this month’s MVP. Look for her photo on the Employee Appreciation Wall outside the Chancellor’s Suite in the Central Building. A Faces of UAMS video will feature her, and she’ll get some great UAMS swag. At one of the chancellor’s cabinet meetings, April will receive a certificate and monetary award and honor her and other awardees at the year-end MVP luncheon.

Do you know someone who should be the next MVP? If you have someone you’d like to nominate, please visit go.uams.edu/mvp/ and fill out the form.

Please congratulate April for being our MVP of the Month!