Military experience serves St. Luke’s team member in career and in her current fight

Thanks to her military experience, Jasmine Jones has found the ideal career at St. Luke’s. And that experience is also helping her through the most challenging fight of her life.

Jones served four years in the United States Air Force, stationed at the academy near Colorado Springs, Colo. As a medic, she assisted in surgery and also worked in the cadet clinic.

Growing up in Germany, the daughter of an Army veteran, Jones felt like she was destined to serve in the military, but her dad recommended a different branch.

“I had things ingrained in me from a young age and into my time in the Air Force, being a direct communicator, not letting much bother me, that I think prepared me well for life as a veteran,” Jones said.

A St. Luke’s team member since 2021, Jones is a change management business partner. She has helped groups around St. Luke’s find ways to get projects and initiatives “to the finish line,” building capability within the organization.

From assisting the care management team in rolling out social drivers of health assessments to creating new notifications to make care safer for clinical teams and for patients, it’s a great fit.

“It lends itself to my strengths quite a bit. I feel I’m adaptable, I’m a certified yapper,” she said. “I love interacting with people, building relationships, helping them feel empowered and shining a light on the strengths they have. They have it; I’m just trying to bring it to the surface —  it’s a passion to help people realize those moments, that light coming on.”

And with a career that inspires her, Jones was happy to take an opportunity to pay it forward however she could when St. Luke’s launched its Veterans Employee Resource Group last year. Jones, who received her master’s degree in health science from Boise State with an emphasis on behavior change and health promotion, had a leadership role as the VERG’s first wellness champion.

“She was instrumental in setting up the framework for the group,” said Austin Overacre, VERG president and St. Luke’s project manager, noting how Jones was an early supporter of the group’s first events.

Said Jones: “It was awesome being the first group to start an ERG, because who gets things done better than veterans?”

Jones said being able to show the diversity that exists in the military and connect with other women who served were among the best parts of the VERG. However, she has had to take a step back in recent months as she has been fighting breast cancer.

In May, she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, which according to the Cleveland Clinic is an aggressive cancer that affects about 13 in 100,000 women.

But Jones is taking it on the only way she knows how.

“Most days, it’s not necessarily moving upward, but moving forward,” Jones said. “My pancreas was affected by immunotherapy, so I’m now navigating diabetes. But you quickly learn in the military what is in your control and what isn’t. My spirits are still high, whatever is thrown at me, I can handle it.”

Before being diagnosed, Jones was at the gym and said she felt something was off, checked herself and thought it felt abnormal. Her intuition was right, an awareness of self she said developed in her military career. Now, she is a strong advocate for everyone to be on top of their checks.

Her positivity has been an asset — her last chemotherapy session was Nov. 5. Now, she will undergo surgery and radiation through St. Luke’s Cancer Institute. And Jones is looking forward to taking on this next step.

“It’s of course been challenging. I’ve still been trying to do my best to lead during this,” Jones said. “The organization has been awesome, a lot of people have given me grace and understanding, VERG showered me with support. They know chemo brain might hit and will help me out. I had some fear that people would see me as less capable of doing my job, but that has not been my experience.”