Know the Nurses: Tammy Krautkremer

Last updated: May 1, 2024

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Categories: Home Care/Private Duty Nursing, Inside PHS

Today in Know the Nurses we’re introducing you to one of our private duty nurses,Tammy Krautkremer, RN, who has been with PHS since November 2011. Recently, we learned that Tammy’s daughter, Kelsey, is in need of a kidney transplant due to her Chronic Kidney Disease. A student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Kelsey began raising awareness and funds to find a donor and currently, she has had many willing candidates and is waiting for a few recent labs to come back before choosing someone to set up a consult.The Krautkremer family has set up a fundraising page to cover the costs of travel and living for the donor while in Minnesota, and plan to use any additional funds raised towards the medical costs of this process.

We already know our nurses provide comprehensive, round-the-clock care for patients in their homes every day, but here are a few fun facts about Tammy you might not know.

I grew up in Brooklyn Park with an older sister and 4 younger brothers.
My husband Paul and I have been married 28 years and we have 3 grown children – Adam, Jamie and Kelsey.
The one thing I didn’t expect in home care was to have such great support and to work so well as a team while working in a home. While searching for a nursing position I originally wasn’t considering home care because of all the stories I heard from classmates. After viewing the PHS website, I knew this one would be different.
We like to spend time at our parents’ cabins with family. One is west of Little Falls the other east of Brainerd. I’m not sure what I like best between the sunsets, northern lights, sandy beach or billions of stars.
Once, as my kids and I were on our way to the cabin we ran into a storm, it turned black as night and once we got to a safe place found out there was a tornado and it lifted up a half a mile from the highway we were on.
My biggest accomplishment was graduating from the nursing program at North Hennepin Community College in 2010. Before I was accepted into the nursing program, my dad bought me a coffee cup that said “Nurses make everything all better.” So the pressure was on to become a nurse. I lost my Dad before I graduated, but the cup is a reminder that he believed in me.
I am a volunteer at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis in nursing services. I volunteer at the prenatal clinic, and I previously worked at and assist in teaching child birth education.
I have always loved children no matter if they were my own, nieces or nephews, my daycare kids, or one of the 365 foster children my parents cared for. That’s why working at PHS is a great fit for me.
Nursing is everything I expected and more – it is a joy to be greeted by little smiling faces and appreciated so much by families just for doing your job. I know how difficult it can be to trust someone else to care for your child.
The best medicine I believe is music – it works wonders with the little ones especially.
I enjoy photography especially nature, birds and wildlife. I also collect agates, and my photo of my collection was selected to be in the North Hennepin Community College yearbook. I later sold it for $40.
My other hobby is cake decorating. The photo is of my brother and his wife on their anniversary and the cake is a miniature of their wedding cake I made for them 25 years ago.
I enjoy sewing quilts and used this as a way to remember my dad – I took 30 of his shirts and made lap quilts for my mom and each of my siblings.
Our most recent vacations have been to the Grand Canyon, an eastern Caribbean cruise, Nashville and Memphis, TN – including Graceland for my Mom’s birthday!