T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Shauna Callaway, pictured, is the new executive director of Iowa River Hospice in Marshalltown.

Shauna Callaway is no stranger to the healthcare field or the Marshalltown area, and she’s excited to take on a new challenge as the executive director of Iowa River Hospice leading an organization known for its local focus and community involvement.

Other than the years she spent away at college, Callaway has lived in Conrad her entire life and raised her three children — all of whom are either adults or in college now — there along with her husband Chad. She has previously worked at the Iowa Veterans Home and most recently served as the director of public health in Poweshiek County, and her educational background is in nursing and social work.

“I’ve been in a lot of different arenas in health care for, gosh, 25 plus years. I’ve seen some acute care, some home health, was at the Veterans Home for many years and most recently at public health in Poweshiek County,” she said. “When I went into public health four years ago, I wasn’t sure of my mission, and I quickly found out (it) was certainly to lead through COVID. That was quite an experience and a learning curve.”

While she’s never worked in hospice before, some of her experience at IVH falls along similar lines, and Callaway said she was approached about the Iowa River position on a few separate occasions.

“I loved what I was doing in public health but thought I needed to take a look at this. I said to my husband ‘This is a God thing that he keeps presenting, so I at least need to look at it.’ So I looked at it, and it just kind of all fell into place,” she said. “I mean, what a great mission here — a nonprofit, local, you know staffing numbers are great, the patient/nurse ratio — it’s a little gem right here in Marshalltown. And for me, this is home.”

Since she started the new job on Monday, Callaway has placed an emphasis on building relationships with the 60 full and part-time staff members as well as the patients IRH serves, and she hopes to continue the organization’s long tradition of community involvement and partnerships. She knows hospice is a difficult field to work in and said she has a special appreciation for anyone who does it.

“Anybody that goes into hospice is just a really unique individual. Whether they’re a volunteer, they’re a nurse, they’re a provider, a social worker, they’re just unique individuals who really care about the patients they serve but also care about the community,” Callaway said. “They really want to offer that patient care and service, but they want to offer more than that back to the community. I just feel that being the only local hospice here, having those connections with other local agencies and being able to provide that continuum of care is key to healthcare here and being able to support other agencies and other agencies that are also providing care and (figuring) out how we work together.”

Carrying IRH’s mission forward and reintroducing herself to the Marshalltown community will be a few of Callaway’s top priorities during her first days on the job, and she’s excited to see what the future holds for the organization.

“I believe education is a part of what we can do as far as supporting individuals at end of life (and) adding resources, but even educating them before they get to that point of what supports are out there so they feel like when they enter this point of their life, they do feel like they’re informed of what’s available,” she said.

Iowa River Hospice is located at 502 Plaza Heights Road and can be reached at (641) 753-7704.

——

Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.