Dedicated to nursing and infection prevention

Before Tom Button ’79 could make an impact in his chosen field of nursing, he had to first break down a few barriers.

When Tom came to Mount Mercy in the late 1970s, studies show men represented less than five percent of the nursing workforce. In fact, Tom was one of only two men out of more than 40 graduates in Mount Mercy’s Department of Nursing class of 1979. But after considering other career options, and a short stint in the Navy, he arrived on the Hill focused on following his own path.

“I knew nursing was for me,” Tom recalled. “I knew that was the right thing. I didn’t know where it was going to take me, but that was the goal.”

It ended up leading him to an accomplished career not only in nursing, but as a health care leader in the field of infection prevention, making him a well-deserved recipient of Mount Mercy’s 2024 Distinguished Service alumni award. Initially, however, Tom admits being a male in the female-dominated field of nursing presented a few challenges from individuals who had outdated perspectives about who should become a nurse.

“No matter who you are, you’re going to run into obstacles,” he said. “You have to persevere and have that positive attitude, and know where the goalposts are, and what you really want to accomplish. That’s how I looked at it.”

Tom appreciates the support he received from Mount Mercy as he made his way through the program and began his career, specifically mentioning former professor of nursing inaugural dean Dr. Mary Tarbox as a valued mentor. As a non-traditional student, he didn’t live on campus and was slightly removed from campus life, although he did participate in drama and choir.

Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing, he switched back and forth from pediatric to adult nursing in various locations, including Miami, Dallas, Atlanta, and Kansas City. He was initially pushed into pediatrics due to the inability for men at that time to become labor and delivery nurses, despite his desire to become a midwife (with encouragement he had received from an OB instructor at Mount Mercy). It was a temporary setback, but the pediatric knowledge he had gained while at Mount Mercy helped forge what became his career path.

It was in McKinney, Texas, in 2003, that he made the career changing decision to accept a position in a specialized track of nursing as Director of Infection Prevention & Control, where his duties involved making sure his health care system was in compliance with governmental infection prevention standards. He accepted several similar roles, including Corporate Director Infection Prevention & Control with Truman Medical Center in Kansas City in 2012, which brought him back to the Midwest.

“An infection preventionist basically is involved in everything in health care,” Tom said. “From facilities, looking at water and air quality to how construction will affect our patients and staff and develop ways to protect the environment and protect people? What do we do on the nursing units to make sure people are giving injections correctly and using safe injection practices? How can we prevent giving somebody a blood-borne infection through a central line catheter, ventilator associated pneumonia, or a Foley catheter associated UTI? We look at antibiotic usage to help prevent further development of multi-drug resistant organisms through the inappropriate use of antibiotics. The profession looks at every aspect of the health care organization that could ultimately provide a means for infection to be obtained or spread to others.”

Tom’s developed expertise was called upon during two highly publicized outbreaks that threatened public health. In October of 2014, he answered a request for help from the World Health Organization and spent one month as a consultant in Sierre Leone in West Africa helping a hospital contain an Ebola outbreak.

“They had a lot of health care workers who had died from Ebola,” Tom explained.

“We worked on how the staff were going to put their PPE on and how they were going to take it off,” he continued. “We’re going to keep themselves and the environment clean so that they didn’t have to worry about getting any more infections. And the good thing is, after we did all of this, there were no other health care workers in that organization, in that hospital setting, that developed Ebola.”

That knowledge was solicited again during the COVID-19 pandemic when he was pulled out of retirement to assist with implementing infection prevention practices at hospitals in California, Texas, and Florida, educating staff for a week or two at a time, despite the danger to his own personal safety.

“I knew that I understood good infection prevention practices — that I could protect myself,” he said. “What I wanted to do was share that knowledge so other people could also protect themselves.”

Tom lives in Kansas City today with his husband, Noberto, and although he no longer works full-time, he is still called upon to do consulting work in infection prevention. Looking back upon his career of accomplishments, he’s grateful to Mount Mercy for laying the foundation for an impactful career.

“I think that anybody that goes into nursing always has the desire to help,” Tom said. “I think Mount Mercy nurtured it and allowed it to grow.”

Tom encourages today’s students to soak in the entire college experience—not just the academic requirements. He’s pleased to have opportunities to pass along what he’s learned to future health care leaders.

“I feel like I’ve had my opportunity to shine and now it’s payback time,” he said. “So it’s really being able to train other people so that they can pursue their passions the same as myself.”

As for his choice of nursing for a career, he looks back without any regrets.

“I 100% chose the right profession,” Tom said. “There are so many so many opportunities, I talk to people about nursing all the time.”