Why did you become a nurse?
I could say it was my maternal grandfather that first put me on the road to a nursing career. TV ads for The Bryman School (a San Francisco Bay Area Vocational Technical College) in my childhood would always prompt him to say I would be attending there someday. I always had an aptitude for medicine and loved TV medical shows and books, but, my sights were on a singing and performing arts career and I attended college majoring in vocal performance and theatre. After touring for a few years with an ensemble group I got married but soon found myself a single mother and needed a job with daytime hours. I had gotten my CNA certification while attending college and was working for nursing registries in nearly every capacity all over the Sacramento area when I saw an ad for another vocational, technical school offering a new multi certification program called a Registered Medical Assistant. The 22 month program offered me the opportunity to earn certification in Billing and Coding, Cardio, pharmacy and lab technician as well as Phlebotomist and Transcriptionist. I was in the first graduating class in 1989. I spent many years working for private doctors until taking a position with a large Northern California Medical Group where I worked in various departments until finally settling in Rheumatology in 2010. After 18 years with them, I decided to try and relocate to Montana to be closer to my mother who lives in Ennis. There was an opening at St Peter’s Rheumatology Department, who had just hired a new physician. I moved to Helena in 2018 to assist Dr James Bennett and have been in that position ever since.
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What was one of your most memorable nursing experiences?
It was early in my career as a CNA. I was working at the Sacramento University Hospital's pediatric unit, I came across a room that looked like an ordinary nursery. In the crib was a baby about 8 months old sleeping. He was dressed in ordinary clothes and other than a puffed up face, looked like a normal baby. I asked the charge nurse what the room was for and why this child was in there. She told me it was a “layover room” and that the infant was born with an inoperable brain tumor. He was abandoned by his mother shortly after birth and, now his foster mother had brought him in, no longer able to care for him so they were waiting on the social worker to find him a new foster family. All through my overnight shift, I could not stop thinking about this poor, twice rejected, terminally ill little boy. When my shift ended, I was compelled to go back to the room. I just stared at the baby for a few minutes, then picked him up and sat in the rocking chair and started singing to him. With tears flowing down my cheeks, I looked at his innocent face and thought about the unfairness and often cruel realities of life, and watching the morning break out the window as people went about their daily lives oblivious to the experience I was having. It was in that moment, I discovered the heart of nursing.
What does it take to be a nurse in challenging times?
I find the most challenging thing to be the ever shrinking scope of practice for those of my title and the need for what we can truly offer a medical practice. Those of us with a lot of background and experience often find ourselves feeling obsolete, outdated and displaced. The ever changing medical sphere makes it hard to stay relevant and feel respected. That is why this is such an honor for me to be recognized as part of the nursing team by both my peers and The Independent Record. I will be retiring in a couple of years and this recognition is truly humbling and heartwarming. Thank you, all.
