CATES: Holiday Safety - Odessa American: Health Carol Cates Carol Cates is the chief nursing officer at Odessa Regional Medical Center. You can reach her via e-mail at Carol.Cates@steward.org CATES: Holiday Safety By Carol A. Cates, MSN, MBA, RN Odessa American This year, we had a Thanksgiving as I think many of you probably did. Quietly at home with a minimal number of people. Normally Thanksgiving at my house is a big event. We normally have lots of friends and family about on that day. I hope next year I will be able have our big Thanksgiving, but at the same time it was nice just having my immediate family around. One thing I didnât think about however, was the leftovers. Even reducing the size of everything I normally do; I still had many more leftovers this year than ever before. Between the twoâchanging our routine because of COVID-19 and the leftovers we had to deal with, I have been thinking a great deal about Holiday Safety.