Jim Gutschow was just 38 when he received the sobering news that he had stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. His doctors in Kansas City, Missouri, told him he had four to five years to live. 
 
That prognosis changed, however, when he made a trip to Nebraska Medical Center for another opinion at the urging of several friends. 
 
Nebraska Medicine medical oncologist Philip Bierman, MD, said a stem cell transplant could potentially cure him. Jim received the transplant in December 1994 and is still living to talk about it today.

"I've always been competitive," says Jim. "I just wanted a chance to fight and survive it."

Nebraska Medicine gave Jim that opportunity.
 
"The care I received at Nebraska Medical Center was phenomenal," he says. "Everyone is so committed to their jobs, the organization and compassionate care. It is beyond compare. I have told many others to visit Nebraska Medicine so they too can experience the world-class facility in Omaha, Nebraska."
 
And even more importantly, says Jim, who has since been treated here for pancreatic cancer in 2014 and is now being treated for a relapse of his lymphoma, "I continue to go Nebraska Medicine because I believe when I go there I will get better." 
 
Jim still remembers one of the most difficult nights of his life shortly after his stem cell transplant. "I didn't think I was going to make it," he says. "Coming out of the bathroom on all fours, my nurse, Susan Kruse, saw me and said she would help me back into bed. But I told her if I got back into bed, I wouldn't make it. She helped me into a chair and held my hand for the next several hours. By morning, I'd gotten through the worst of it."
 
Jim and his wife, Pam, never forgot Kruse, Dr. Bierman and the rest of the Nebraska Medicine team who have given Jim another 28 years and counting. Inspired by their commitment and compassion, several years ago Jim and Pam decided they wanted to find a way to give back. "We wanted to do something that would directly involve the caregivers." 
 
Jim and Pam created an endowment that annually recognizes four oncology caregivers who have shown extraordinary compassion and commitment to their jobs and rewards them with a cash gift. These caregivers are chosen by their managers and include two RNs, an oncologist who is still new in their career and a care tech. Theresa Franco, MSN, RN, vice president, Operations for Oncology, stepped in and worked with internal staff to help make this award happen. 

On December 3, 2021, the four caregivers were recognized at the inaugural Nebraska Medicine Compassionate Care Awards ceremony.
 
"It was a very moving and impactful ceremony," Jim recalls, who attended with Pam and his three adult children. "The emotion that came out that afternoon was amazing. We didn't realize that it would have that type of impact. Pam was overcome with a sense of joy, as it surpassed anything she or I anticipated." 

Jim says it was even more meaningful and rewarding that he and Pam got to attend the first ceremony together, as Pam passed away just six weeks later. 

"Our goal is to help each and every donor come up with a way to give that is most meaningful to them," says Tom Thompson, director of Development, University of Nebraska Foundation. "Jim and Pam's endowment is very special, as it will have a direct impact on the people who make such an extraordinary care environment for patients with cancer."