Family Birth Place Nurse Honored with Outstanding Preceptor Award

A registered nurse at Adventist Health Portland’s Family Birth Place has been recognized for her excellent work as a preceptor—teaching, mentoring and training new nurses.

Jennifer Krieger, BSN, RNC-OB, is one of 20 honorees in the state to receive a 2024 Oregon Outstanding Nurse Preceptor Award from the Oregon Center for Nursing. The annual award celebrates exceptional preceptors for their contributions in guiding nurses into new specialties, educating on hospital policies, offering feedback and encouragement, and assessing clinical competencies.

“This is so well-deserved since Jen volunteers to precept new hires and students,” says Julie Hannah, MN, RNC-OB, director of Family Birth Place. “Jen knows great patient care. She explains things to new students and hires in a way that makes them feel respected and they can learn from. She gives feedback on how they can improve and compliments them on a great job. Details matter to our patients and our team makes it look seamless.”

Natural-born teacher

With 14 years of nursing experience, Jennifer has spent five of those years working in Family Birth Place. In addition to providing patient care and nurse precepting, she also completed specialized training this year, passing the advanced certification exam for Inpatient Obstetric Nursing (RNC-OB) in July. She chairs the Professional Practice Committee for Family Birth Place and has spent countless hours creating agendas, tackling issues and fine-tuning processes and systems.

With such a busy schedule, Jennifer’s precepting award caught her completely by surprise—in a good way. When she read the email announcement, she experienced a “flurry of emotions” including excitement, pride and appreciation.

“Training a new nurse is an incredibly important responsibility, and I take it very seriously,” she says. “I want to arm my preceptees with the knowledge, tools and confidence they will need to provide competent care independently. If I can do that, patients will benefit for potentially many years to come.”

Marina Matveychenko, RN, is one former preceptee who now works with Jennifer as a nurse and colleague. “Jennifer has all the qualities of a great preceptor,” Marina says. “She made it clear that labor [and delivery] can be unpredictable, and remaining calm under pressure is an essential skill. She is thorough, detail-oriented and a reassuring presence for me personally and for families and fellow coworkers. She embraces challenges and inspires others to strive for more and do better.”

Another Family Birth Place nurse and former preceptee, Lindsey Nelson, RN, shares: “Jen makes a great preceptor because she gives a good balance of encouragement with gentle yet constructive criticism. She is passionate about evidence-based practice. Having her trust in me as a brand-new nurse gave me confidence. Jen is an all-around wonderful person and cares so much about her patients. We are lucky to have her as a part of our unit!”

Part of a team that cares

For Jennifer, making a difference for patients, families and coworkers is what it’s all about.

“The thing that brings me the most joy is seeing the look of achievement, delight and confidence in a new nurse when they successfully insert their first IV or call a provider and communicate effectively,” she shares. “I love seeing the same look on the faces of new parents after they successfully swaddle their baby for the first time or get baby latched [to feed] without assistance. It is really a magical moment.”

Jennifer credits the staff and providers at Adventist Health Portland for creating a place where nurses excel and patients receive skilled and caring treatment. “I cannot say enough good things about our Family Birth Place nurses,” she says. “Hands down the best team I have ever worked with.”