PULSE CHECK: Ashley Lipke, a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator at Cross Trails Medical Center, shares tips on avoiding diabetes as a family

Friday, August 3, 2012

Ashley Lipke grew up in Sikeston, Mo., and earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from Southeast Missouri State University. After marrying husband Scott Lipke, she literally stumbled into her job as a diabetes educator at Cross Trails Medical Center: "The day of my job interview there was about a foot of snow on the ground. As I walked toward the door, I fell face-first into the snow," she says. "I brushed the snow off and pulled myself together as best I could. When the CEO reached out to shake my hand, I remember her telling me that my hand was as cold as ice! That broke the ice, so to speak, and I explained that I had just fallen in the snow. That started a journey on the development of what is now one of the region's premier diabetes programs."

To continue reading
For more than 115 years, the Southeast Missourian has written the first draft of local history. We have aspired to enrich, entertain, educate and inform. Our core values have remained firm: truth, service, quality, integrity and community. Support our mission.