Buzzy's whiteboard: A Veteran celebrates, uplifts his Milwaukee VA nurses

Approximately 80 names fill the whiteboard in Veteran Peter “Buzzy” Buzdum’s room at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center. They’re the names of the many nurses and other providers who have cared for or otherwise connected with the 81-year-old Army Veteran during his 2½ years of recovery and rehabilitation on the hospital’s ninth floor.

Buzzy’s whiteboard is his way of showing appreciation for those who have helped him.

“The nurses get abused by the Veterans, so I wanted to do something to thank them,” he said.

Started with balloons

It started with balloons. Buzdum would display a balloon for each nurse who tended to him, but the balloons were nixed by infection control. So Buzdum was given a whiteboard. 

And at first, he was perplexed.

“I said, ‘What the (expletive) am I going to do with this whiteboard?’ But one night I put my name on it, and as people came in, they added their names. Nurses would come in with a frown on their face, look up there, and then write their name. And once they did that, they’d leave with a smile on their face. It was therapeutic.”

Moving on

But Buzdum’s time at the Milwaukee VA has come to an end. He was scheduled to move into a nursing home in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.

So Monday was something of a sad day, as nurses dropped in to bid Buzzy farewell and to pose for a picture with him and his whiteboard.

“I’ve had everybody coming down to see me before I leave,” he said Monday. “I’m scared to leave because the service here is top-notch. I’ve made a lot of friends.”

“It’s sad,” nurse Niki Mouradian said. “It’ll be good for him — he can go harass the next set of nurses or patients — but it’s sad for us. When you have these patients for so long they become part of your family.”

"He's been wonderful"

Mouradian praised the positive environment Buzdum created during his time on the unit, and his appreciation for the work the nurses do was not lost on them. Buzdum has a pair of framed letters from the DAISY Foundation — which honors outstanding nurses — thanking him for his efforts to celebrate nurses.

“He’s been wonderful since he’s been here,” Mouradian said. “It’s good to get to this point where he can leave. It’s a good thing. We get to share him with other people.”

Buzdum regrets having to leave his whiteboard behind as he moves on but hopes a photo of it can be framed and hung on the unit.

“I’m sad about leaving because I’ve bonded with these ladies, these guys, and I can’t say one bad thing about the facility here,” Buzdum said.