ER nurse Allie Spontak stays calm amid chaos

If you’ve been to the emergency room at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, depending on the shift, you might have received care from nurse Allie Spontak.

On the non-chaos days, it’s run-of-the-mill abdominal pain or lacerations that need stitches or a broken bone.

Sometimes, it’s as hectic as on TV shows with surgical emergencies such as strokes, heart attacks or other traumas.

“We treat the whole life span from infancy to elders,” Spontak said. “No day is the same. There is variety that is intellectually stimulating and challenging.”

She has certification as a trauma nurse specialist. Spontak is a preceptor, which means she acts as a teacher and coach, supervisor of nursing students during their clinical rotations. She recently was promoted as a clinical shift coordinator, another leadership role at Delnor.

Spontak is in graduate school now at Loyola University Chicago for her doctorate of nursing practice degree.

Spontak was at Delnor as a new graduate nurse in 2018, did a year of travel nursing and came back to Delnor in 2023. She had barely two years of experience when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“It was kind of a surreal experience,” Spontak, 28, said. “Looking back, we really didn’t know what was going to happen. We did not know what was going to walk through those doors. The disease was spreading. Not a lot was known about it. Treatments were changing on a weekly basis. ... There were a lot of moving parts.”

“When you see a positive outcome, it really makes it worthwhile.”

—  Nurse Allie Spontak, Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital

Early in the pandemic, she was part of a team that treated a 30-year-old woman who was critically ill from COVID-19.

She came back to thank them and even brought her children who delivered handwritten thank you signs.

“When you see a positive outcome, it really makes it worthwhile,” Spontak said. “Sometimes you don’t get to know the outcome. You stabilize a trauma patient who is transferred to a higher level of care. Then you move on to the next patient.”

Spontak had nurses in the family, such as her grandmother, who didn’t talk about it.

When she started at Illinois Wesleyan University, she was undecided about what to study.

“I stumbled on the nursing program,” Spontak said. “I really liked the program and joined in my second year of college.”

She chose emergency medicine after serving in an academic internship at the Carle Foundation Hospital, a Level 1 trauma center in Urbana.

“That got me a lot of experience and that field of nursing was my passion,” Spontak said. “You see a lot of humanity in the ER. You’re seeing people on some of the worst days of their lives and worst situations. And we help them through it.”

Emergency Room manager Justin Farmer praised Spontak’s abilities, saying, she “is fantastic to work with.”

“She is always two steps ahead of what we need her to be. She is able to read the room and rise above,” Farmer said.

Spontak keeps a calm, level-headed demeanor in such a professional way that allows the emergency room staff to give proper care, he said.

“She doesn’t match the energy of the stress or the chaos,” Farmer said. “The emergency room can be chaotic at times. It’s a place people don’t want to be in, but they find themselves in. It’s the worst day of their lives, sometimes.”