A Voice From The Past

I haven’t been entering any updates on Facebook as much as I used to for the last many months. But I do add something to my LITDigitalart business page every day. So it was interesting to get a friend request. It was from someone I used to work with at the hospital in the Midwest almost forty years ago. That was when I was a practicing Registered Nurse. I worked on a medical unit, then a surgical unit, then ICU, then managed the cath lab, then was the head nurse of a medical and a telemetry unit. I didn’t spend a lot of time doing bedside nursing and it’s been a very long time since I did. The last ten years of my employment were at the Library of Congress, and the fifteen years before that were in healthcare administrative positions in a large system. I’m always struck when someone asks me if I remember them - because just seeing the name is usually familiar and it feels just like yesterday. And so was the case with Deb. I remember her being quite pretty and well put together. So I accepted her friend request and she wrote a short note. It took me back all those many years and it made me feel really good. I remember her, and all the people I used to know there - several I’m still in contact with now. It just feels funny to be remembered in a role I didn’t play in very long. But it’s nice to know her thoughts about it. 

Nurse Practitioner at Sibley Hospital Outpatient Center

Just a few weeks ago I needed to have my knee checked because of discomfort that wouldn’t go away. So we went to the Med star prompt care center a few blocks away after being rejected by our doctor office. I was seen by a nurse practitioner but ended up being referred to another physician office and don’t think he really addressed the issue as it is still there. So when my husband needed something evaluated last week, the physician wouldn’t be available for weeks so he made an appointment and was also seen by a nurse practitioner at the Sibley hospital outpatient center. We much prefer going to Sibley in a quiet neighborhood compared to the difficult to navigate large medical centers. Anyway, he thought the nurse practitioner was excellent. I’m not really surprised. At one time in my nursing career I enrolled in the nurse practitioner program at Marquette University. I had a masters in nursing in administration and a peripheral vascular disease. But the majority of my career was in admin. So when I took a pharmacology class and an older adult class, the first one was daunting, but the second one was fun. I hadn’t administered medication for years and never excelled in these sorts of classes. I thought it might be a good back up plan to have another degree in senior care but in the end I stopped after these two. After all, working full time and taking classes was hard enough the first go round, and I just wasn’t as enthusiastic. But I am so glad that nurse practitioners have integrated so well in just about every setting - giving physician assistants and primary care docs a run for their money. I’m not disappointed with the decisions I made with my education. And it’s nice to see a physician like my husband appreciate a great care giver when he sees one. 

It's A Gift - Dr. Harriet A. Fields and W.C. Fields - An Interesting LinkedIn Connection

As we usually do, my husband and I watch and DVR Turner Classic Movies. A couple days ago, we recorded some W.C. Fields movies - It's a Gift, David Copperfield, and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man. I used to watch W.C. Fields as a child, and my parents loved him at the movies growing up. At the beginning of the movie, there was a special intro by his granddaughter Dr. Harriet A. Fields. She seemed like a really nice person, and we googled her to find out more about her. We watched It's A Gift and loved it. The next day I sent a LinkedIn invitation to Dr. Fields. I didn't think much more about it. Within a couple of hours she accepted the invitation to connect and I sent her a message saying we had a few things in common...nursing, old movies, and I work at the Library of Congress - where a lot, if not all, of W.C. Fields movies are preserved. She sent back a wonderful note about her grandfather, W.C. Fields, a link to her marvelous life and work, and said she would be speaking at the LOC's W.C. Fields Tribute on November 13 and 14 in Culpeper at the Library of Congress Packard Campus. What a treat to virtually "meet" someone who has a famous ancestor, but has also contributed so much to the nursing profession around the world. I've heard about the six degrees of separation. This is a very interesting one! We may need to take that trip to Culpeper in November to make a real live connection!