After high school graduation, I attended and graduated from St. Vincent School of Nursing in Indy where we also attended Marian College. My first job was at Community Hospital (now Community East) in a dept. with one title but 9 different departments, none of which I had been trained to do in nursing school. I loved every minute of it and became very involved in the “Inhalation Therapy” (now known as Respiratory Care) part of the department. Within 9 months I had become the manager of the entire department due to the maternity leave of my boss. She never came back to work.Two years after going to Community.
I became a founding (charter) member of the Indiana Society for Respiratory Care. It still goes strong and I am the only charter member still living or remaining in the state.After 4 years at Community, I was hounded by several people to apply for a job at I. U. Medical Center to start a dept. of “Inhalation Therapy”. The Med. Center had nothing that resembled a dept. and the doctors knew it. During that time I sat for the only credentialing exam there was for respiratory therapists. The final part of the exam was given in Washington, D.C. and it was oral. Not so today. Fortunately, I passed. My new job at the Med. Center hinged on it. I was the 2nd person in the state of Indiana to take and pass the exam and the only R.N. The 1st person was a nun in So. Bend. Most therapists today think I should be dead because my credential number is 3 digits instead of 6 digits or more.While at Community,
I met an engineering student from Purdue whom I married in 1966. By that time I was at I. U. Med. Center and my boss had asked me to start a school for “Inhalation Therapy”. When I told him I didn’t consider myself an educator, nor did I know anything about schools (there were none anywhere for “Inhalation Therapy” then), he said he didn’t care and he wanted a school, so do it. In the meantime my husband was traveling from Indy to Bloomington each day working on an MBA (had finished an EE at Purdue) and the Army starting sending him love notes about Viet Nam. He finished the semester, before he went to Navy OCS and ultimately spent 3+ yrs. in the Navy.I researched until I felt I had a preliminary proposal to submit about the school. It was to be the first degreed program in the nation, starting with an A.S. degree, then B. S. and ultimately a Masters. The top doc liked it and said get the paper work going. Since I.U. was so slow and cumbersome at getting anything done at that time, I thought it would be years before anything happened. It also had to be approved by the Commission on Higher Education. Much to my surprise, the program was approved in 2 months or so. Where to get students? I called a Freshman counselor in Bloomington and asked to talk to some of her students who didn’t yet know what they wanted to do with their lives. I got one student. She ultimately graduated the program, but never worked even though she became credentialed.
The program existed until about 1 1/2 years ago when Clarian took over the higher education of Allied Health Professions. The A. S. program was dropped years ago and the program was for B. S. candidates only.In 1967, I moved to Newport, Rhode Island where my husband was home ported. I never saw the one student again, nor did I ever teach her a thing. All core curriculum was taken in Bloomington and clinicals were at the Med. Center. There was no IUPUI. She did her clinicals after I moved to RI. We lived in Newport about 2 years where our daughter was born and died. She lived 3 days and my husband was at sea. The following year we were transferred to Washington D.C. and lived in Falls Church. After he exited the Navy, we moved back to Indy, and one month later, our son was born. I was a stay at home mom for the next 6 years. There was a restlessness in me and I didn’t recognize what it was, but I went back to the Med. Center to work in the Respiratory Therapy dept. on a part time basis as a hands on therapist. That was mid November of 1974, and by Jan. 1st of 1975, I was head of the dept. in University Hospital which had been built in my absence, but I had designed the dept. before I left in ‘67. The dept. was built exactly like I designed it and it remains the same today with the exception of a corridor which was made to meet code. The dept. head today was an on the job trainee, under my supervision in 1978, obtained her A.S., then B.S., then Masters in the I.U. program.I stayed at the Med. Center 12 1/2 yrs. this time, but divorced in 1976. The dept. had grown considerably and there were many, many problems. It took about 5 yrs. to turn it around. By that time we were doing therapies that no one else was doing and ultimately we became the largest dept. in the nation. After all that, I decided it was time to move on. I went to work as an independent consultant for Puritan-Bennet Corp., a manufacturer of respiratory equipment. It was a job that covered many aspects from product development, marketing, technical writing, investigations, working with foreign customers, etc All during my years at the Med. Center, I worked part time on weekends (nights) at various nursing homes as a staff nurse. Kept my fingers in the nursing pie, so to speak.
When business took a downturn at Puritan-Bennett, they stopped using consultants and I was on a job search. Ultimately, I went to work in 1989, for a little known company, at that time, call Vencor. It was a company that had 6 long term care hospitals based out of Louisville. I started as Assistant Administrator for Clinical Operations in their Dallas Hospital, then became the interim Administrator. Six months later they asked me to move to Corporate Office in Louisville and start a new dept. there. So I did. The company grew into a 2.5 billion dollar company and then went into bankruptcy. I was with them 9 years, but was downsized in the mayhem that came at the end. The company is now known as Kindred, and they own, not only the hospials, but about 200-300 nursing homes.
In 1994, I remarried and that lasted until this year. I won’t bother to get into that, but it was doomed from the start. That is book in itself.
After Vencor, I worked as an R.N., staff nurse in several places, but ultimately sought a job in Columbus, IN, at a not for profit retirement community. I am Director of Nursing at this community and have about 200 residents. Our health care center has 70+ patients and the remainder live in apartments and may or may not have assisted care. I have been there almost 5 years. I’m sure everyone remembers Joyce Skaggs. She was a resident of this community for 23 years before she passed away about a year or so ago. Joyce and I had many conversations about Knightstown.
Now, I try to teach my nurses about respiratory care since the nursing schools teach them almost nothing. They can’t even get the terminology right much less know the anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system. Many of our patients have big respiratory problems, so I guess it is good that I am there to see that the nurses get educated somewhat in this area. Nurses will never take the place of respiratory therapists even though the Dean of the School of Nursing at I.U. told me in 1965 that nurses should do “everything” for a patient and that she would fight my profession until we were gone. Funny how she, many years later, wound up on a ventilator and wanted the respiratory therapists at her side most of the time. I guess, for her sake and others, that she did not win her battle!
My son lives in Overland Park, KS. He has not seen fit to marry and therefore, I have no grandchildren. I’m too young for that anyway. My mother will be 90 next month and she lives in WVA. My father passed away in 1988 and my brother in 1991. I live in Franklin, IN, now and have no plans to retire any time soon.
Little did I know, as that farm girl from Knightstown, that I would get this far in the 50 years since graduating from KHS. As much as I hated that farm, I learned a lot from living on it. Some of what I learned has helped me get where I am today, and, as much as anything else, I truly believe that our education at KHS prepared me for all that I have encountered.
Maybe, if I ever retire, I will write a book, but as I think about it, it would have to be several different books. Where are those English teachers when I need them?
Ellen,
I’m still working in the graphic arts (anything regarding print material design and production) going on 43 years. My wife Brenda, a ‘58 graduate of New Castle, has retired from working in a bank for a number of years. We live in Indianapolis on the northeast side and spend time with our grandkids when we can.
Jerry Cooper and I were both in K-town for Jubilee Days - we went out, married, had a son- Jerry, Jr. “Jay” and were married 27 years. Jerry was in the Air Force and posted in San Antonio, Texas, where we moved. Quite a change. It drove me nuts to realize that if I phoned any number in that huge directory and spoke my name they would not know or care who I was. Being military we were not alone. We attended a huge church and if I remember correctly it was bigger than K-town - very warm and friendly. The weather was great. Very, very different from Indiana. I loved the food. Living in San Antonio was a wonderful, wonderful experience. The military was determined I live in Germany - I was determined otherwise .If we did not go to Germany it was out and home. Music to my ears.
Jack said had we been married when he was in Viet Nam he would never have come home because he would not have had his mind on his business. That keeps me from going nuts - most days. We had some wonderful years - heaven on earth. There is probably not a positive adjective that does not apply to Jack. He was not perfect but very close. He was still very strong willed as was I. Thank goodness! My son loved Jack - wrote a beautiful tribute for his funeral.
