The emergency department at The University of New Mexico Hospital is where life-saving work happens every minute of every single day. Being the state’s only Level-I Trauma Center means UNM Hospital’s emergency department teams are prepared to handle anything and everything…
Even falling in love.
That was the case for UNM Hospital nurses Victoria Barner, RN, and Matthew Panek, RN. The two have worked together in the Emergency Department Resuscitation Unit (EDRU) for 10 years, side-by-side for most of that time, tackling some of the worst cases in the state.
Every day is pretty hard. We have to juggle a lot of patients and figure out who needs what. We've lost patients together. We've saved patients together.
“It’s control in the chaos,” Panek said. “We do the best we can for our patients.”
Barner, a UNM alum, graduated from the College of Nursing in 2012. After participating in the nurse residency program and rotating through several units at UNM Hospital, she knew she wanted to work in the ER.
“I played competitive sports and I like the rush of the ER,” she said. “Getting to work with the team, to multitask and make quick decisions- I love it.”
For Panek, it was after he and his brother were in a serious car crash that he decided he wanted to pursue a career in health care. He was an ER paramedic when he first met Barner in the emergency department at UNM Hospital. He later became a nurse.
“As a nurse, Victoria and I get to work together even more closely oftentimes on the same patient. Sometimes it's just the patient, Victoria and I in the room, doing what we have to do.”
And, many times, they’ve had to see their patients through critical points of their lives—the good and the bad. Barner said she remembered watching Panek comfort a patient in a heartbreaking moment during COVID.
“He was asked to go into the patient’s room with an iPad so the doctor could talk to the patient about end of life,” Barner said. “I was watching him through the windows, using the iPad, talking to the family, talking to the patient, just holding the grandma's hand. I was crying. It was hard to see, but if that was my grandmother, I would’ve wanted him there.”
Through the highs and lows of their work, the two inspired each other.
She’s hands-down the best nurse in the ER. She really is. She just gives the best care.
“We take care of patients and resuscitate patients together,” Barner said. “And I can trust him. I know his skills. I know he's good and, at the end of the day, that's the person I want in there with me.”
For the first two years working together, the two were just friends. But that all changed when Barner became a patient herself.
“I broke my wrist on my 26th birthday skiing in Santa Fe,” she said. “I called him on the way home and said I needed to come to the hospital. He saved me a room and my friends and coworkers all decorated it with happy birthday flyers. They cut contact gowns into streamers and I had like 10 people watch me get a conscious sedation to fix my wrist.”
Afterwards, Barner said Panek didn’t leave her side.
“We were sitting on her couch and she was in pain,” Panek said. “Her nerve block was wearing off and that's when I was just like, ‘I kind of want to be here for her forever.’”
In 2021, Panek asked Barner the forever question. A week before her 30th birthday, during a snowy vacation in Taos, Panek proposed.
“I said something along the lines of, ‘you're my best friend. I want to spend every second of my life with you,’” he said. “It was pretty simple. ‘I just love you and I want to be with you.’”
“I was honestly in shock,” Barner said. “It took me a minute to understand what was going on.”
But, of course, she said yes.
The two aren’t in a rush to plan their wedding, but their friends in the ER think they have the perfect venue.
“They all say we should get married at UNM Hospital,” Panek laughed. “They would love it.”
“I just have this fantastic life,” Barner said “I get to share it with him and it’s great.”
And a big part of that life will continue to be taking care of their patients, together.
“We’re both caregivers by nature. We love to make people happy,” Barner said. “Working in a place like the EDRU where everyone's having their worst day, it means a lot to make it a little bit easier on someone and to know that at UNM Hospital we’re providing them the very best care.”