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Marion County Health Department has 2024 Illinois TB Nurse of the Year

By Austin Williams Mar 3, 2025 | 4:13 PM
Melissa Mallow (left) presents Caitlyn Crain (right) with the Illinois TB Nurse of the Year award. Photo by Bruce Kropp.

The Marion County Health Department’s Director of Clinical Services Caitlyn Crain has been named the 2024 Illinois TB Nurse of the Year by the Illinois Council on TB.

Marion County Health Department Administrator Melissa Mallow is proud of the work Crain does for the department.

“Last year we happened to have two unique TB cases that were, as I said, very unique and unusual,” Mallow said. “Caitlyn had to think outside the box to be able to help the residents get the medicine that they needed and the care that they needed. That was noticed by IDPH, so she was nominated by IDPH to receive this award as TB Nurse of the Year.”

Crain joined the Marion County Health Department in 2020 after working in a similar position in the Clinton County Health Department.

“There are tons of challenges that people go through that make TB treatment hard to maintain,” Crain said. “There’s a long treatment length, some of the medications have a lot of different and interesting side effects. We also do things like direct observed therapy, which means I come out and I watch them take their medications, I monitor them for side effects of the medicines, make sure they maintain their appointments on time, and make sure they’re getting the right treatment and the right dosage, so there’s a lot that goes into it.”

Crain says it was working with two positive TB cases last year that led to her coming up with a better monitoring system.

“We found a company that does video DOT, which is a great service. It allows patients to take medicine on their schedule. It allows me to also see it online, so there’s less time spent driving to these places, less time spent on documentation because it’s documented there for us. The patients like it; they have more freedom to take it when they want, to report side effects. It’s been a wonderful tool that we have.”

In addition to the two active TB cases, the department provided assistance to 10 with latent TB symptoms that is also tread with drugs.  A total of 237 skin tests were administered as part of the tracking program.