FAIRMONT – How can one being be so small and still be here?
In her travels as a neonatal intensive care flight nurse in the skies over North Carolina and South Carolina, Kim Toothman was used to tending to some of the tiniest patients on record.
This particular patient, though, was different.
This particular patient was her daughter.
And Taylor Toothman had just arrived early to the party. Way early.
She was born at 27 weeks and barely weighed 2 pounds.
Taylor, who is now a dentist – more on that – was a patient in the neonatal intensive care unit, NICU, in the hospital where her mom was employed.
Even with her expertise, Taylor’s mom could only watch from a distance while her colleagues did their work.
Their competence and caring nature, she said, only reinforced the career choice she already saw as a calling.
Kim Toothman decided then she was going to eventually give back to the place that helped her soar in her profession.
Last week, she did.
She and her husband Don established the Kimberly Lannan Toothman Endowed Nursing Scholarship, at Fairmont University, the couple’s alma mater.
Toothman was a self-described shy kid from a little town in Marion County, when she first stepped onto campus.
Fairmont State, then and now, is known for its nursing program.
When Toothman, who would go on to earn a doctorate in her field besides logging all those flight hours, was initially accepted into the program – it didn’t take long for her once-timid nature to become permanently grounded.
“I learned that I could dream big and actually achieve it,” she said. “I’m very blessed to have worked as a nurse.”
Fairmont State President Mike Davis likened the scholarship to a prescription, as it were, to help future nursing graduates simply be there – better – for patients in need.
“We are deeply grateful to the Toothmans for their extraordinary generosity,” Davis said.
“Their gift will help prepare skilled, compassionate nurses who are essential to the health and well-being of our communities,” the president continued.
“Compassion” is one of the watchwords that drove the endowment, Toothman said.
So is “enthusiasm,” she added.
“Compassion and enthusiasm aren’t graded,” she said. “Skills will improve with practice as long as there is a will to be an excellent nurse. Don’t give up.”
Two new parents didn’t give up on Taylor, who would go home from the NICU and grow up to become a dentist and an orthodontist – a coincidental turn that always gives her mom a chuckle.
“Yes,” the scholarship creator joked. “A dentist … named ‘Toothman.’”
