By Foster Wright
On a mid-October Saturday morning, registered nurse Willie Kunkel arrives at the employee entrance of Holy Cross Hospital’s emergency room on his e-bike. Sporting a black helmet, large pink goggles and a gray reflective coat, Kunkel pauses to smile while sitting sideways on his bike before hopping off to park it at the Silver Spring, Maryland, hospital. Despite the oddly warm weather making it tempting to skip work, Kunkel’s enthusiasm and optimism are infectious.
He greets everyone with cheerful “good mornings” and fist bumps before punching in at the time clock. “It’s going to be a great day!” he exclaims as he walks through the electric double doors that lead into the emergency room.
Kunkel’s journey from inspiring young minds as an English teacher to caring for critically ill patients as a registered nurse reflects his adaptability and unwavering dedication to helping others. Driven to make a difference, he began his nursing career in 2020, joining the fight against COVID-19. He embraced this new challenge fearlessly, bringing a unique perspective to the healthcare field.
Kunkel’s blend of empathy, humor and creativity stand out. Beyond his nursing duties, his artistic pursuits are a powerful outlet, transforming suffering into beauty.
From the classroom to the emergency room
Kunkel, raised in Washington State, comes from a family of artists. His mother, Marile Kunkel, is a renowned actress, singer, painter and high school director. His father, Stephen Kunkel, is an art enthusiast. His grandfather, Keith Sexson, was a long-time drama director at Wenatchee Valley College. These influences nurtured Kunkel’s artistic inclinations, particularly in painting and photography, especially portraiture.
Before becoming a nurse, Kunkel taught English in China from 2012 to 2017 after graduating from Arizona State University. After teaching in China, he taught high school English at a public charter school in Tucson, Arizona. He said he was underpaid and underappreciated as a teacher, which led him to pursue nursing.
“I’d been teaching abroad for a while, and coming back to the U.S., you get paid so little here, and teachers aren’t valued in our society,” he said. “There’s no respect for the position, and in my experience, there’s often very little respect for the individuals, from students, parents, and administration, and you get paid nothing for the amount of work you do.”
The shift begins
Kunkel, ready to embark on his 12-hour shift, sheds his helmet and pink goggles, revealing bright blue eyes and a low-cut, dark blonde hairstyle. His trademark contagious laugh fills the room as he chats with fellow nurses at the nurse’s station, some just arriving, others already weathered by the 7 a.m. start. A patient handoff from longtime friend and coworker Shari Latchaw marks the beginning of his shift.
Latchaw, who has known Kunkel for years, paints a picture of an adventurous soul, claiming he is the most adventurous person she knows. Latshaw shared how Kunkel has lived worldwide and recently returned from a three-week trip to Africa, where he was filming animals. Latshaw questioned why a man like Kunkel would choose a nursing career. She answered her question when she shared how she pulled a prank on Kunkel and how his reaction shed light onto Kunkel’s spirit and character.
“We prank each other, but he’s too nice to actually be mean to him,” Latshaw said. “I put a sticker on his back that said, ‘hug me,’ and people kept hugging him. He loved all the hugs and then felt disappointed when he realized people weren’t hugging him because they wanted to.”
Even in joking or pranks played by a coworker, Kunkel innocently enjoys the unexpected affection, showcasing his optimistic and easygoing personality.
The gray reflective jacket has now been removed, and it is as if Clark Kent has traded in his suit for his Superman costume as Kunkel now appears in the renowned blue scrubs, the signature threads for nurses at Holy Cross Hospital. Less than an hour into the shift, tensions rise as a patient’s guest becomes confrontational because they hear Kunkel, along with other staff members, laughing and talking, while Kunkel is the nurse responsible for his wife’s care.
“I feel for him; he’s scared and stressed out,” Kunkel says. “He just couldn’t handle the fact that we were having any amount of fun at our job when we needed to be worried, you know? That’s fine, as long as you don’t try and fight me.”
The patient’s husband, visibly agitated, began rolling up his sleeves, threatening violence against nurses who were not involved in his wife’s care. As the situation escalated, Kunkel interjected, “You can’t steal my chair and then not give it back.”
“Find out! Ask me again and find out!” The disgruntled guest yells at Kunkel.
Kunkel comically replies, “Well, I do need my chair!”
Kunkel’s ability to navigate high-stress situations with humor and composure illustrates his resilience as a nurse. His quick wit and empathy allow him to defuse tension and deeply connect with patients and their families. Moreover, his artistic perspective enables him to find beauty and meaning in even the most chaotic moments, highlighting his unique approach to healthcare. As he reflects on the recent encounter with the disgruntled guest, an ironic smile creeps across his face. “That would actually be a pretty funny painting, The Chair,” he muses, “some real accidental Renaissance out here in the ER.”
Showing off his artistic side
In early October, Kunkel shocked Holy Cross Hospital employees and leadership by entering the emergency department a day before Emergency Department Nurses Appreciation Week and hanging portrait paintings of his coworkers.
Kunkel’s colleagues were amazed by his talent, as evidenced by Kathy Maldonado’s exclamation after seeing the portraits on Instagram, “He’s so talented!” His portrait project, born from a desire to improve his portraiture skills, involved capturing candid photos of diverse coworkers. Each portrait took approximately six hours to complete. Though some were disappointed at not being included, Kunkel intended to practice and experiment with various features and skin tones.
Kunkel has traditionally drawn pictures of landscapes and birds in ink, but his inspiration for portraits emerged from boredom. While sharing how he pivoted from ink drawings to portraits, he recalls thinking, “I am kind of tired of birds and landscapes. It’d be fun to paint some portraits. So, these portraits you see in the ER are really like me dialing in my portraiture.”
Kunkel’s nursing school years gave him an unexpected opportunity to hone his artistic skills. Enrolling in a figure drawing class, he spent hours sketching nude models, a practice that significantly improved his portraiture. This experience taught him the importance of patience and experimentation, encouraging him to embrace the process of artistic refinement.
A therapeutic outlet
Kunkel relates his experience as an educator to being a nurse, acknowledging that both are unappreciated and thankless jobs, but that does not deter him from giving his colleagues and patients his best.
“Nobody wants to be here,” he said. “The healthcare institution is a nightmare, and nobody’s getting what they need or deserve. I’m just helpless to fight against it.”
Yet, despite his frustrations and patient guests threatening to harm him, he approaches his work positively, radiating light and joyful energy onto his colleagues as he settles into his work area for the day, smiling and joking among his coworkers.
“Of the terrible things we see every day that are very moving, and at the moment, you can’t experience that, those emotions, you know what I mean?” he said. While Kunkel finds solace in sketching these scenes, he acknowledges the challenge of transforming such tragic moments into art. He explained that the most potent images were often the most painful, such as the limp limbs of a patient or the flashing lights of an ambulance. By capturing these fleeting moments through art, the artist could process their emotions and find meaning in suffering.
“But in terms of painting being an outlet, it certainly helps to sketch these things down, take these ideas, where every day in the hospital we go through so much trauma and grief every day,” he said.
Kunkel finds solace in art, using it as a therapeutic outlet to process the emotional weight of his work as a nurse. By sketching scenes from his daily experiences, he externalizes the intense feelings of grief and loss, transforming suffering into meaning.
Finishing the shift
At the halfway point of his 12-hour shift, Kunkel flies down an ED hallway laughing as he’s pushed in a wheelchair by an X-ray technician. “He’s wild!” exclaims nurse Ashley Portillo as she sits behind the nurse’s station next to where Kunkel is assigned for the remainder of his shift.
As Kunkel concludes his eventful shift, he maintains his characteristic positivity, handing off patients to the incoming night shift with a smile. His friend and colleague Jenny Qiu attests to his unique blend of artistic talent and compassionate care.
“His passion for the arts and patient care is what makes him unique,” she says. “Willie is an amazing friend. His enthusiasm, warmth, and charm bring out a smile and laugh each time we work with him. We couldn’t work without Willie!”
Reflecting on the emotional intensity of their work, Kunkel describes the powerful imagery of a pediatric code: a chaotic mix of people, technology and desperation. Despite such challenges, he strives to remain even-keeled, finding solace in his artistic pursuits.
As he rolls out of the hospital parking lot on his e-bike, the pink goggles, gray reflective jacket, and helmet conceal his identity, but his impact on the ER team remains. His unique blend of humor, empathy and creativity makes him invaluable, and his artistic talent serves as a powerful outlet to process the emotional intensity of his work as a nurse.
As he bids his coworkers goodnight, Kunkel’s optimism shines through as he hops back onto his bike. “It was a good day, and we’ll be right back again to do it all over again tomorrow.”