Medical Center's Top Peak Performer 2021

Melissa Manley & Stan Davis

Melissa’s dedication to the pharmacy department and Cook Children’s as a whole, is in my opinion unmatched. As the technician supervisor over our IV rooms, she’s inundated frequently with new regulations that change the way we work. These are good changes as they’re meant to improve the safety of how we make sterile products.

Melissa is our COVID vaccine queen. Organizing the Decker vaccine clinic took dozens of leaders and staff to accomplish. Behind the scenes, Melissa worked furiously to keep the Decker stocked with diluted vaccines. Normally an evening supervisor, Melissa modified her schedule to arrive at 4am most days, just to ensure vaccines were delivered properly. Instead of unloading this responsibility on our already busy morning crew, she took this time sensitive process upon herself to manage. Yes, there were bumps in the road, but because of Melissa’s dedication preparing vaccines for 3-5 hours daily, those bumps were rare. 

​One of Melissa’s initiatives was building an IV certification program for untrained pharmacy techs. Typically, you must receive initial IV training elsewhere, then come to Cook to train in our system. Melissa recognized that a lack of IV certifications was creating a gap in fully trained staff, so she created our own program from scratch. This required a number of certificates and approvals in order to be recognized by the State Board of Pharmacy. To be clear, building an
in house IV certification program is not normal, yet Melissa spent months on it because it serves our staff and our patients.

Melissa’s greatest strength is also her greatest weakness; she cannot say “no.” Regardless of the situation or sacrifices to her personal time, she will do just about anything for her staff. We’re thinking about making “TAKE MORE PTO” one of her PACE goals for the year. In summary, we’re grateful for Melissa’s commitment, as she exemplifies service leadership, and she’s an enormous asset to Cook Children’s.​