As the interim Director of Nurse Recruitment and Retention, Amara Ellis demonstrated exceptional leadership, hired and mentored multiple new department hires, and supported the department in its record hires (288 hires in FY24, 213 transfers in FY24 & 140 hires for FY25 by 9/10/24), created a respectful, supportive, engaging collaborative environment in the office and hospital, and led the team during the challenging transition of the department's restructuring. She was always accessible and responsive to her team by quick but thorough follow-up emails or in-person, candidates and hospital coworkers, and always made sure she 'closed the loop'. Every day, she demonstrates service to her fellow nurses and staff members, respect, teamwork, and integrity, from wayfinding in the hallways to texting new hires to follow up when they have stressful housing/pet situations! She often arrives early and stays late, replying to emails on her lunch walks, after work, or over the weekend, and helps all her coworkers and potential candidates! When we were overwhelmed with New Grad candidates, despite just taking over as the new interim director and actively training several new staff members, while juggling her new responsibilities and learning a new role, she jumped in right away helping to take lots of those new grad candidates so we could continue to move them all through effective and efficiently! During her New Grad Info Sessions, her love for MedStar Georgetown is contagious to candidates and fellow employees! She understood the strengths, challenges/ areas of improvement of her team and supported them so they could do their best work. She would check in when she knew something was challenging or bothering a team member and work in collaboration with them to problem-solve. She advocated for team members and job responsibilities/ task redistribution during the restructuring to make sure new leaders understood the strengths of her team members and to ensure all items were covered. She created a NRNR Gem/Gemerits Program to support office comradery and celebrate team & individual collaboration/support & task completion! She is an amazing nurse, coworker, and boss! It has been such a pleasure to get the chance to work with her! 

***

Amara has been such an influential part of the beginning of my nursing career. From the time that I began my work at Georgetown as a Summer nurse tech, until now, almost two years into my nursing career, Amara has gone above and beyond to make sure I have felt supported and empowered in my career. Her smiling face and always open doors have made me feel welcomed since day one. We often talk about how Georgetown is a “family,” and Amara is one of those people who exemplifies these ideals perfectly. I am beyond proud to work with leaders as wonderful as Amara and I hope to one day be the mentor she has been to me.