Gordon Rogers '66

Q: What has been your most challenging moment working in healthcare?
A: I was an emergency nurse, serving as a charge or supervising nurse for much of my career. When people ask me what the hardest or most challenging part of my job was, they usually expect me to describe caring for a patient with some horrible injury or devastatingly on death's door illness. I have seen some extreme cases of both, but the hardest, most agonizing times I have had in my work have been when we were overflowing with patients; all beds full, lower-need patients in wheelchairs in the hallway and other high-need patients just minutes away by ambulance. It was not being busy in itself or having to be creative in finding places and assigning patients among the already busy nurses that was hard. It was not taking new patients myself (even when theoretically - Ha! - I was supposed to be focused on managing the whole department rather than doing direct patient care. The hardest part of my job was simply in knowing what I had to do and wanted to do to deliver good, high-quality care but not being able to do more than the necessary basics because things were so crazy that I just didn't have time. This was not my situation all the time, but it was far more often than it should have been.

Q: What has been your proudest moment working in healthcare?
A: I don't think I could name a single moment or event. Often it was being able to see more deeply than the obvious problems and finding a way to address underlying problems - for example, recognizing domestic abuse when someone was complaining of simply having fallen or that someone was in a diabetic crisis when they were complaining of breathing problems. I remember spending a full hour on a busy day (I wasn't in charge then) caring for the mother of an infant, perhaps three months old. She was found unresponsive and pulseless at home and came to our department by ambulance, where he was unable to be resuscitated and was pronounced dead of apparent SIDS. The emergency care was intense enough, but what I remember is how she just needed time to hold her baby, to grieve, to ask questions, to call friends and family, and tell each of them what had happened. I was able to support her, to reassure her, to explain things and help her process what had happened.  Long after all the necessary work was done, she just needed time to say goodbye and someone to express her anguish to. I am proud of the camaraderie we all shared. None of our spouses could understand how we could tell such gruesome stories at meals - which we always did because we didn't have time to share things like that while at work. 

Q: When and how did you decide to pursue a career in healthcare?
A: I had no thought of becoming a nurse until one day I was talking with my aunt (a nurse) about what I wanted to study in college. I told her that I really liked the sciences but that I didn't want to just work in some lab studying things or doing research that no one would ever hear about or appreciate during my lifetime. She said I should consider nursing, which is scientific and evidence-based, but the fruits of which were very visible every day.

Q: How did your experience at Springs shape your career choice?
A: My experience at Springs provided me with the ability to appreciate that I was capable and responsible for directing my own life. 

Q: What advice would you give to Springs students who want to pursue a career in healthcare?
A: Health care is not really something you can just read about and understand. It is truly working with people, not merely with science or theory or abstract things. If you are interested, I suggest you spend a little time - as a volunteer or working on the periphery - in a health care setting so you can get a feel for what it is like.

Q: What can the Springs community do to help during the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: Follow the precautions you have been given. Don't take them lightly - if not for your own sake, for the sake of those you are close to.