Dr. Tim McGuinness: Gynecologic Oncologist

Dr. McGuinness

“Thanks for coming,” I say as we sit down together.

“Thanks for asking me,” he answered.

“Thanks for saying yes. This is not easy to do.”

“Which part? You or me?”

“Both,“ I say, as we laugh.

Dr. Tim McGuinness said that he has never been one to talk about himself--that is not his style. I told him that this has been my experience with almost all of the doctors interviewed for these stories. But once they begin talking, and I can keep myself from interrupting the flow, they can open up and go on for two hours. 

So Tim asked where he should start, and I suggested with his family. And so he did.

Family and Before Medical School

His father, born in the Lehigh Valley of Eastern Pennsylvania, was a Border Patrol officer in Texas in the early 1950s. It was a very humanitarian service then. While there were some people that they had to apprehend and deport, they often took care of people “walking in the hinterlands of South Texas” that needed water, a meal, and medical care. Tim’s mother (also from the Lehigh Valley) was a nurse.

Because of his father’s job in immigration, Dr. McGuinniss and his younger brother had the opportunity to experience life in several quite different places. While he spent most of his childhood in Laredo, Texas, he also lived for a while at the Canadian border, and (as a high school sophomore and junior) in “idyllic” Hawaii (toward the end of the Vietnam War, during which refugees came through the islands ).

He finished high school in 1971 in Corpus Christie, Texas, sitting on the Gulf of Mexico, and went to Texas A&I University (now, since 1993, Texas A&M) in Kingsville, South Texas (where he was born).  Tim said that he “always wanted to be a doctor” (reportedly since he was only three or four years old), but as he was a B student in college, and admission to medical school in the U.S. was very competitive, he decided to do a Master’s in microbiology (also at A&M). 

College Hall at Texas A&M Kingsville (Credit: A&M)

In the infamous compulsory 1972 military draft lottery, he was assigned the ignominious number 4. He knew that when the time came, when his very unlucky number was called, he would be drafted into the Army.  He was not going to flee to Mexico or Canada to avoid military service, but he did not want to find himself in the infantry in the hot jungles of Vietnam. Tim decided to join the Coast Guard Reserve. The part-time commitment was for six years.

Medical School, Internship, and Public Health Service

He applied to medical school as a graduate student and was accepted to the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (TCOM) in Fort Worth. Tim attended by way of the generous Public Health Service program. This covered school tuition and fees, and provided a stipend for living in exchange for a promise to practice in an underserved area for as many years as the scholarship covered.

One day, as an eager second-year student learning about disease, he felt a lump in his neck and had someone look at it (more about this later). 

After he finished medical school and took a rotating internship (doing surgery, internal medicine, ER, OB/GYN, etc.), Dr. McGuinness decided to fulfill his Health Service obligation as a solo practitioner in Del Rio, Texas, a medically underserved area sitting directly on the border. Why solo, and not in a clinic? He told me that he didn’t like the idea of “being told how to take care of patients by non-medical administrators.”

International Bridge spanning the Rio Grande and connecting
Del Rio, Texas with Ciudad Acuna, Mexico (Credit: Ronald Castle)

While there, as he said, he took care of everything that “walked, crawled, or got dragged in through the door.”  He did one hundred deliveries a year, and spent one half day a week at a Title IX health clinic for women. He recalled the sadness of finding a young woman’s advanced cervical cancer that had been misdiagnosed by several physicians in town. 

The experiences in this fragile community affected him deeply, and as he looked at the texts he collected in his bookshelf, he realized that he had developed an interest in Women’s Health, and especially in gynecologic cancer.

What to do next? As part of his four years of government obligation, Dr. McGuinness spent a month at an Indian Health Service clinic in Oklahoma. While there, he met a fellow physician who had trained at York Hospital. Tim was intrigued by his colleague’s glowing description of the place and the program, and he said to himself, ”That’s where I’ve got to go!"

Residency, Fellowship, and Initial Practice

And as Dr.McGuinness did his “great” OB/GYN residency at York Hospital, he couldn’t wait to get to work every day. What he had been previously told about the staff (including Drs. George Johnson, Hank Carter, Brad Myers, and Jay Jackson) was true. They were, he said, “superb teachers and surgical beasts.” He was also taught by experts who came up to York from Hopkins (including the renowned GYN cancer specialist Dr. Neil Rosenshein–"A prince of a man,” according to Tim). All in all, Tim had a wonderful time as a resident. 

Dr. Mangan

After this, he continued his training with a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Pennsylvania Hospital (the nation's first hospital) in Center City Philadelphia. The director of the program, Dr. Charlie Mangan, was an “amazing teacher,” and a perennial Philadelphia Magazine “Top Doc.” Dr. Mangan became Tim’s mentor. As they worked together closely, Dr. Mangan recognized his protege’s talents and asked him to join him as a partner.

The next six years in Philly were quite active as local residents and women from the distant suburbs sought knowledgeable specialty care for gynecologic cancers. In fact, the program was busier than the same services at Penn, Temple, and Fox Chase. 

But the big insurance companies (including US Healthcare) were in a race to be “the lowest paying people in town.” As the increasingly inadequate reimbursements could no longer cover the costs of the practice, the well-regarded group was pushed to near bankruptcy. Dr. McGuinness had two kids in high school, and he needed a secure way to provide for them.

Return to York

Dr. Nicolas Simon, hoping to recruit a fellowship-trained gyn-oncologist to York, called Dr. McGuinness to ask if he knew of anyone who might be interested. Tim’s response? “Yeah, you’re talking to him.”

So Dr. McGuinness returned to York in 2000 to develop the Division of Gynecologic Oncology. He was essentially by himself for a grueling six or seven years as the service grew. He was greatly helped out by his first nurse practitioner, Michelle Thompson, who made his life “a heck of a lot better.”

Michelle

His wife Janet (an OR nurse) planted the idea of having him start a fellowship program in York. He listened to her and, over time, he trained ten fellows (“good people”) who, in turn, helped lighten his day-to-day workload. In subsequent years, they were able to add attending staff from the graduates. Dr. McGuinness practiced the demanding art of gynecologic oncology in York for 16 years before retiring at age 62. 

Advancements and Other Changes

He saw many improvements in his chosen field over the decades. Though he was initially trained as a “big hole” surgeon, he learned to do the tricky laparoscopic procedures, and he was happier when robot-assisted surgery made complex cases easier and much more precise. 

He was also a witness to dramatic changes in the non-surgical aspects of caring for women with cancer. He was glad when Zofran, “a miracle drug,” virtually eliminated the “almost unconscionable” misery of intense chemotherapy-associated nausea (that sometimes started even before the chemo infusions, in a Pavlovian manner, he noted). Unlike older, much less effective, treatments for nausea, Zofran directly blocks the effects of the serotonin surge released by the gut at the brainstem chemoreceptor trigger zone and the vomiting center. It may also dampen general awareness of internal body signals. It made the dreaded chemo sessions tolerable.

When Dr. McGuinness was in Philadelphia, he had “the extreme displeasure” of watching three young girls die with cancer of the uterine cervix. He is glad that this might be a thing of the past. Virtually all cervical cancers are caused by persistent infection with one of the HPV viruses. Vaccination against HPV with Gardasil (approved in 2006) by age 11 or 12 (before sexual activity) may prevent up to 90% of invasive cervical cancers. 

And since HPV may also cause oral and anal cancers, all adolescents (including boys) should consider early vaccination to defend against infection (only about 70% of U.S. teens are currently fully vaccinated). 

Ovarian cancer that has spread beyond the ovary (the vast majority of cases, sadly) is “very difficult to eradicate,” said Dr. McGuinness. Localized tumors, those few that are curable, are usually picked up incidentally when looking for something else. But the most recent “biologic” and immune and targeted therapies for ovarian (or fallopian or primary peritoneal) cancer can sometimes result in a manageable “chronic disease” with long- term survival. The complex science behind these new (and emerging) therapies is truly remarkable.

Importantly, women with BRCA gene mutations are at extreme risk of developing ovarian cancer (maybe up to 60% with BRCA-1 defects, considerably less with BRCA-2), and may be candidates for prophylactic ovariectomy when they are beyond their childbearing years. Intensive screening to identify small tumors early on, when they can be fully removed, hasn't worked out yet. 

Risk of breast and ovarian cancer and BRCA mutations
(Credit: Myriad Genetics)

And Dr. McGuinness has seen how the electronic health record has altered the doctor-patient relationship. He said that he is a “firm believer of looking people in the eye, touching them, and talking to them.” He is not a “data entry clerk” and refused to give in to that misguided demand when it surfaced, and preferred to continue to dictate his clinical notes. He believes that “patients need to feel connected to their physicians” as caring doctors, not “just as technicians.”   

He has seen, and is pleased, that there is now more attention to alleviating the heavy psychological aspects of receiving a diagnosis of cancer and living with it, including the ever-present fear of recurrence. 

He Retires from Practice to Live Near the Beach 

So, sixteen years after starting the division of gynecologic oncology in York, and at 62, Dr. McGuinness chose to leave practice behind. He and his wife, he said, wanted to “live near the beach.” (Wouldn’t most of us like a permanent beach vacation?) Well, as they looked around, they saw that there were no easily affordable sunny spots along the East Coast. 

The Caribbean was an option, but was crossed out due to the risk of hurricanes. So they turned further south. Tim speaks passable Spanish, and they considered Mexico, but thought it was too dangerous. After months of online study about where to settle as expats, they decided to try Ecuador. 

They visited and stayed with an American couple. They (meaning his wife) had been looking at a place in Manglaralto, a quiet, tranquil village three hours by car from Guayaquil, the cultural and financial center of Ecuador. They were not sure where it sat, but the two-story wooden house that Janet found online turned out to be a baseball's throw from the beach. It was perfect. And they fell in love with it. So they did what you were not supposed to do in these situations–they immediately bought it (for cash, the only option). 

Beach at Manglaralto (Credit: Expedia)

The weather was idyllic for four and a half months of the year–every day was sunny and in the 80s; Southern California-like. For the rest of the year, though it was still warm (never lower than 68 or 69), it often drizzled, and the sky was cloudy and uniformly, depressingly, gray. But even when the sun wasn’t out, “amazing” fresh vegetables and fruit (except for the puny peaches) and “amazing” seafood (including giant shrimp) were always available, and Tim and his wife were okay. 

The Pandemic and an Unexpected Tragedy

They were friendly with the locals, as well as with expats from Romania and Venezuela (and less so with displaced Americans). But things began to change when the pandemic hit. There was great fear of contagion, serious illness, and death. 

To limit the spread of the virus, you could not leave your house after five in the evening, and you could only drive every other day. For nearly two years, they left home to shop or to go to the pharmacy. When vaccines became available, the only one used in Ecuador was the inactivated virus from China. It was not nearly as effective as the novel Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. Dr. McGuinness admitted that healthcare in Ecuador wasn’t “all that great.” So as soon as he and his wife were permitted to travel, they came back home to be immunized. 

But their six-year stay by the Pacific Ocean was “tainted” further by a family tragedy when Tim’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law were staying with them. His sister-in-law was tired, went to the bathroom, fell off the commode, bumped her head, and began acting “kind of weird.” She was reluctant to get things checked out, but she finally agreed to go to the small local hospital. 

The 2-story Dr. Liborio Panchana Sotomayor hospital
(a typical rudimentary healthcare facility not too far from Manglaralto)

She had a head CT. There was no bleed, and the neurosurgeon sent her home. The next morning, she was up briefly, then went back to bed. Her husband found her unresponsive and quickly alerted Tim. Dr. McGuinness tried to resuscitate her; she wasn’t cold, but he knew that she was already gone. 

That sad experience, the stifling pandemic restrictions, and the awareness that healthcare in Ecuador was somewhat lacking and that they were three hours from the nearest major hospital led to the decision to return home.

Return to York, and We Share Stories

He and Janet came back to York four years ago. He planned to pass time by reading (he especially enjoys David Baldacci novels), playing (very basic) blues guitar, or traveling (their dogs currently hold them back). But he was coaxed into seeing patients in the office again to help out Dr. Eav Lim until they are able to recruit a second full-time gynecologic oncologist. But he doesn’t do surgery anymore. 

Deep into the interview, after hearing Dr. McGuinness talk about his extensive career taking care of women with gynecologic cancers, I quietly told him that I was an ovarian cancer survivor. I told him that I was 27 in 1981 and living in Syracuse when the stage IV disease was found. I took Alkeran tablets daily; they made me sick. 

After we moved to Baltimore and had the “second-look” surgery a year after diagnosis, there was residual tumor, and I was flatly told that “there are things we can do.” Shaken, I sought a second opinion. I saw Dr. Rosenshein. He phoned me early one morning after the visit (I was still in bed). He had just come back from a conference and had cutting-edge information. Stay with what you are doing, no more chemotherapy, he said. I was overjoyed. As he predicted, my unusual cancer disappeared. I was lucky. But the damage to my psyche through the ordeal was real and long-lasting. And I felt alone. Having never met a woman who survived ovarian cancer, even 40 years later, has added to this heavy emotional isolation.  

As I spoke, Dr. McGuinness looked at me and listened intently, and with obvious compassion. After a brief pause, he gently told me that he was a survivor too. You see, the lump that had popped up high on his neck when he was a second-year medical student in Texas was a Hodgkin’s lymphoma. When the surgeon who operated on him relayed the diagnosis, he was painfully blunt: “You’ve got it, chief.” 

The young, optimistic medical student instantly imagined the worst–the only person he had met with Hodgkin’s, a colleague in graduate school whom he had known only briefly, had died within two months of diagnosis. What was Tim to think? Would he live to see another spring, his favorite season? But the stage IA presentation of Hodgkin’s was often curable even then, and the lymphoma shriveled away with radiation therapy. 

We are both survivors, yes, but the emotional impact, the shock, of facing our mortality at such a young age can last forever. And it molds who we are, and how we respond to the world. Among other things (and Dr. McGuinness quickly agreed), it fosters a positive sense of gratitude for being alive. Each new day is a gift. 

And, by the way, as my husband often reminds me, “everything is practice for later.”  

Suggested Readings:

1. Anonymous. Cervical Cancer Causes, Risk Factors, and Prevention. National Cancer Institute at The National Institutes of Health. Accessed at https://www.concer.gov/types/cervical/causes-risk-prevention. Updated 8/2/2024. ("Nearly all cervical cancers could be prevented y HPV vaccination, routine cervical cancer screening, and appropriate follow-up treatment when needed.")

2. Hillmann, J., Maass, N., Bauerschlag, D.O. et al. Promising new drugs and therapeutic approaches for treatment of ovarian cancer-- targeting the hallmarks of cancer. BMC Med 23, 10 (2025). (They conclude: Ovarian cancer "remains the most lethal gynecologic cancer...but many new strategies to improve [a] patient's outcome appear upon the horizon..[including] targeted therapy, immunotherapy, gene therapy, and drug-conjugates.") 

2. Hodgkinson, Katherine, Butow, Phyllis, et al. Long-term survival from gynecologic cancer: Psychosocial outcomes, supportive care needs and positive outcomes. Gynecologic Oncology, 104 (2), 381-389, 2007. (An Australian single-institution self-report study of disease-free women up to 8 years following successful treatment revealed that while 68% had positive outcomes emotionally, 19% had post-traumatic stress disorder and 29% had clinical anxiety, often regarding fear of recurrence. Many women reported unmet existential needs.)

By Anita Cherry, 6/17/26

Anita Cherry, Self-portrait, 1981, Watercolor on paper, 10 x 12 inches

Dr. Vince Butera: Orthopaedic Physician/Lifelong Learner

Dr. Butera

Dr.Vincent Butera's father, Liborio, left the island of Sicily with his own father for the U.S. in 1928 when he was fourteen. Many poor peasant farmers had already immigrated to America with the goal of finding a better life, and his uncle was here.

Italy was in turmoil after World War I. The extreme nationalist leader Benito Mussolini, after several years spent systematically eroding democratic ideals and the left, announced his right to assume dictatorial power on January 3rd 1925. Widespread brutality and suffocating oppression followed.

Liborio was safe in the US. And at eighteen, after training in the ancient craft of the cobbler, he opened his own business in York, Pennsylvania.  Dr. Butera said his father embodied the “proud Italian work ethic.” This left a deep impression on him.  Much of his father’s work involved fashioning and repairing so-called orthopaedic shoes.  So the word “orthopaedic” (meaning straight child) was part of Vince’s world from a young age.

Dr. Butera told me that his immigrant family story was typical. After working here for a while, his paternal grandfather would return to Italy “to make another child.” He then came back to the States to work and send money back home. When his grandfather was away, Vince’s father would stay with an uncle.

Eventually, the Butera family settled in York. Vince went to York Catholic High. He was (of course) a good student, and as he “enjoyed science” and wanted to be “in a service type of profession,” he turned to medicine. After graduating from high school in 1963, he attended Catholic all-male La Salle College in North Philadelphia (he had received a scholarship to the school). He felt that the rigorous pre-med program (the vast majority of physician-hopefuls were gradually weeded out) was “the most difficult part” of his education. Medical school was, he said, “focused and supportive.”

La Salle University in Northwest Philadelphia (Credit: La Salle)

(Incidentally, as a team physician and in recognition of what was deemed to be his “service to God and country,” Dr. Butera was inducted into the York Catholic Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.)

So when he went to Temple for medical school, “it was easy.”  After his first year, he married his high school sweetheart, Kathy. And she supported them for the next three years by working as a dress buyer for John Wanamaker’s innovative and famous block-long, 12-story department store in Center City Philadelphia.

At Temple, he enjoyed and was drawn to the “hands-on” approach to doctoring that surgery offered. During his orthopaedic rotation with taskmaster Dr. John Lachman (a clinical test that bears his name is still used to diagnose a torn ACL in the knee), he saw that this was a “happy specialty.”  He saw that most patients came with a specific problem that could be fixed. And he saw they could “return to the mainstream of life.” Vince thought that this would be “a very positive way to practice medicine.”

Temple's Lewis Katz School of Medicine
on North Broad Street in Philly (Credit: Temple University)

And he liked the variety of tasks in orthopaedics, as you could, he noted, fix a newborn’s club foot or replace a hip in a 95-year-old. The specialty was, he said, “applied anatomy.”

During summer breaks from college, Vince had worked as an orderly at York Hospital. When he rotated through the ER, he had fun driving the ambulance. And he enjoyed being in the cast room with orthopaedists Dr. John Kruper and Dr. Joseph Danyo--he saw that they seemed to really enjoy what they were doing for patients.

And in 1971, he left Temple and returned to York for his internship. But this was the time of the Vietnam War (1955 -1975). Since Vince was no longer in college or medical school, he no longer had a 2-S student deferment. So he was vulnerable to being drafted into the Army and being sent to Vietnam as a foot soldier. However, the Berry Plan allowed physicians to finish their residency before being required to fulfill a military obligation.  But this deferment was awarded by “the luck of the draw.” Vince applied, but wasn’t so lucky. 

Considering his options carefully, he decided to enlist in the Navy before he could be called up. He became a Battalion Surgeon with the 2nd Battalion 6th Marine Regiment at Camp Lejune, North Carolina. He served with the Marines (“true professionals”) in the Mediterranean on the USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7), an amphibious helicopter assault ship, from June to December 1973 (the Paris Peace Accord in January 1973 had ended direct U.S. military involvement in the war).

The USS Guadalcanal (Credit: US Navy)

While Vince’s ship was moving through the Mediterranean and docking at well-known strategic spots, his wife, Kathy, was traveling around Europe with friends. They coordinated their efforts, and Dr. Butera had “a girl in every port–but it was the same girl!’

While Vince was in the Service, he applied for an orthopaedic residency. He wanted to go to Pittsburgh to study with Dr. Albert Ferguson (the internationally recognized founding chairman of the department). Time passed, and he received nothing in the mail. So he decided to call the office directly. Dr. Ferguson (who had served in the Marines in WW II) picked up the phone. They talked, and when “Ferg” asked Vince if he wanted to come to Pittsburgh, he (of course) jumped at the chance.

Dr. Ferguson
(Credit: Pitt)

Dr. Butera (who served as Chief Resident) said the training program under Dr. Ferguson was “great.” It was intense, and there was no vacation time. He viewed orthopaedics as “a delicate specialty on hard tissue.” And during his years in Western Pennsylvania, he developed a keen interest in hand surgery. He told me that he, in fact, had “always been fascinated and intrigued by the intricacies of the hand.”  And hand surgery, he noted, does not rely on the “mallets, chisels, drills, and saws” found in the classic toolkit of the ortho surgeon.    

So when he finished his residency, he did an intensive six-month training program in dedicated hand surgery in Denver. 

By age 32, it was time to go into practice. Seeing that York was a “unique and sophisticated medical community” and a teaching hospital, Vince returned to his hometown. Rather than joining the established group, he chose to open his own practice. So he took a two-day course given by the Pennsylvania Medical Society titled “Establishing Yourself in Medical Practice.”  They let him know how to hire staff, which billing system to use (3x 5 cards might suffice back then), and which typewriter to purchase (probably an iconic non-jamming IBM Selectric). That was it!

He received “manna from heaven” when he hired a former Catholic nun who had worked in an orthopaedic practice in New Jersey for 17 years. He said that she knew more about orthopaedics than he did. He was on-call 24/7, and he initiated regular ortho conferences for the residents (who greatly appreciated his teaching). He was soon busy, and the first six months were rough as he adjusted to the heavy workload. After that initiation, he felt he could take anything: “Hit me again!” The three-person practice of one doctor, one nurse, and one secretary grew.

Dr. Moritz

And in 1982, after four years of being a solo practitioner, Dr. Butera was joined by Dr. Micky Mortitz (who was a medical student at Pitt during Vince’s residency there). Now with an able partner, Vince felt like he was “on vacation every other night and every other weekend.”  Over the next eight years, they added two more excellent surgeons to the group–Dr. Douglas Hofmann and Dr. Nick Pandelidis,

While Vince maintained his special interest in hand surgery, which eventually accounted for about 20% of his work, he performed many hip and knee replacements for people whose joints were injured or simply worn out.  He told me that the modern era of hip replacement began with the British surgeon Dr. John Charnley in the early 1960s. Major advances in joint replacement soon followed. (Dr. Butera has two artificial knees himself, having inherited his father’s crooked legs.)

In the early 2000s, the two York orthopaedic practices decided to join forces, and the Orthopaedic and Spine Specialists (OSS) group was created. Dr. Butera was part of this until he retired in 2008 at 62, as the business of medicine was becoming increasingly complicated.

Looking back, Vince felt that he was part of “the great caring and healing profession” of medicine during “the golden years” of private practice. He especially valued the intimate relationship between the physician and the patient found in the exam room or in the OR. His life’s work, he said, came down to “satisfaction and giving back.”

While he was in practice, Kathy, a talented ceramicist who trained in fashion design at the Moore College of Art & Design, was busy raising their daughter, Emily. Since retirement, Vince abandoned the lofty idea of learning to play the saxophone. And no longer able to play tennis, he took up golf (“a ridiculous thing to do,” he noted). 

He and Kathy have spent many summers at Chautauqua, the well-known forward-thinking adult educational and cultural center in far western New York. And he has taken courses at the local Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Penn State York and has given several himself on “the intricacies and beauty of the hand.”

Athenaeum Hotel on Lake Chautauqua
(Credit: Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau)

Waxing philosophical, Dr. Butera said that the fully opposable thumb, where the tip of the thumb can touch the tips of the other four fingers, makes us unique in nature. Nine muscles in the hand and forearm are used to produce the thmb's exceedingly complex movements. Aristotle said that “the hand is the tool of tools.” Sir Isaac Newton is quoted as noting that “in the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.” And in the words of Scottish anatomist and surgeon Sir Charles Bell: “And we  must confess, it is in the human hand that we have consummation of all perfection as an instrument.”  

Physician and primatologist John Napier traced the evolution of the human hand as it developed the form needed to produce a power grip and a precision grip, allowing us to wield clubs and to throw rocks. But these two advanced mechanical abilities may also be used to mold clay into beautiful pottery, to hold and guide the surgeon’s scalpel and sutures to mend a torn tendon, or to repair the worn-out leather sole of an orthopaedic shoe.

The hands of Liborio Butera (Credit: York Daily Record)

 

Suggested Readings:

1.  Napier, John (revised by Russell H. Tuttle). Hands. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1993. (Nearly everything one needs to know--and more--about the anatomy and evolution of the human hand. He states that "the movement of the thumb underlies all the skilled procedures of which the hand is capable." And that finger-thumb opposition "was probably the single most crucial adaptation in our evolutionary history." p.55)

2.  Sobinov, A.R., Bensmaia, S.J. "The neural mechanisms of manual dexterity." Nat Rev Neurosci 22, 741–757, 2021. ( In-depth technical review--for those with the required background-- of the complex sensory and motor activities involved in the remarkable functions of the human hand.  According to the authors, “The hand is the most versatile manipulative organ in the known universe.”)

3.  Wilson, Frank R. The Hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998. (Extensively referenced and far-ranging text building on Bell's and Napier's work, but from the standpoint of a thoughtful clinical neurologist whose focus is on the remarkable "hand-brain" complex.) 

4.  Young, R. W. "Evolution of the human hand: the role of throwing and clubbing." Journal of Anatomy, 202: 165-174, 2003. (The hypothesis is that the first tools used by our ancient hominid ancestors were hand-held weapons used against adversaries that enhanced the chances for reproductive success.)

By Anita Cherry 5/19/26

Kathy Butera's "Carved Vase,"
using iron oxide pigment reclaimed from an abandoned PA coal mine
(Credit: Evergreen Conservancy)

Two volumes of these collected stories are now available in print form:

Heather West LPN: "Your Health is Your Wealth" (and Exercise is Key)

Heather

The weekend before the interview for her story, Heather West, LPN, was skiing. She caught an edge, her skis flew off, she fell, and she was in pain–she thought that she had broken her ankle. ’As a nurse, a fitness instructor, and a personal trainer, she is, she said, on her feet all the time. An ankle fracture would not be a good thing.  She went to the local walk-in (so to speak) orthopedic urgent care center. The surgeon, a hip doctor, examined her, looked at her X-ray, and told her she just had a bad sprain. And he said that she also had arthritis in her knee. Her quick retort? “You will too someday!” 

At 64, Heather, who said she “listens to people all the time” and knows “too much about too many things," tells it like it is. She recalled that an older, experienced physician once advised her that “if you listen, you can figure it all out".

(Well, when she was young, she may have heard what her parents said, but she didn’t always listen.)

Heather’s parents emigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where her father, a “genius” gifted mechanical engineer, designed cranes for Stelco Steel. He then moved the family to Stony Creek, Connecticut, near the Thimble Islands in Long Island Sound, where, as chief engineer,  he worked on lifting equipment for ManSaver. He was then transferred to ACCO in York, Pennsylvania, on Princess Street. 

He subsequently turned down a promotion to be chief engineer of the company. He would need to move the family to Salem, Illinois, but when he visited the plant, he quickly decided that he did not want to live in the Midwest. When his boss threatened to fire him for refusing the generous offer, he took the matter into his own hands (so to speak) and quit his job before that would happen. And in 1972, Harvey Bradley started his own business, Bradley Lifting Corp., on Sherman Street, before he moved everything to the current Elm Street location. 

A custom below-the-hook lifting device
(Credit: bradleylifting.com) 

The Family Set a High Standard

Reflecting on her successful father, Heather remarked that “there were geniuses in the family” and that she, as the middle child, as the black sheep, felt that she could never live up to the high expectations for her. Her brother Colin and sister Lorraine set lofty examples in school, and what she heard was, for instance: “There’s Heather! How come she’s in the back of her science class by herself?” Her unspoken reply? “Because she hates it!” 

Though she didn’t really like science, she truly despised math. She didn’t get it at all. Her father tried to teach her (“You’re going to learn this, Heather’), When he showed her something and asked whether she “got it,” she was at a complete loss–she “got nothing.” She said that when he bought her a big fancy calculator she “didn’t even know how it turn it on!”  Her father’s approach to teaching was not the one for her. She needed things presented differently, and in line with her own nature, her way of learning. 

By the way, her British mother (who did nursing while still in England) could also be tough on her kids. For example, her method of teaching her young children to swim was to simply toss them into Long Island Sound. (She apparently knew what she was doing, and later gave formal swimming lessons.) 

Meigs Beach (Credit: Long Island Sound Partnership)

Anyway, despite the lack of insight into the meaning of numbers, Heather did quite well in high school overall. But she did not want to disappoint her parents or waste their money on college when it didn’t interest her at all. So Heather quietly let her grades slip during her senior year, and when she took the SAT, she chose answers completely randomly. Her dismal score proved that she was not destined for higher education.

What would she do instead? Being good mechanically and having worked in a garage at 17, Heather announced that she wanted to be a truck driver or a diesel mechanic. She was told that “girls don’t do that.” 

Nursing? No. Family Business? Yes. 

Her parents knew that their younger daughter was a very caring and generous person who always wanted to help people. So, at 19, Heather was urged to take a job as a helper at a small local nursing home, and she went along.  She was quite disturbed, however, when she saw how some of the residents were being treated. And when one of them, a woman who had reportedly not spoken a word in, maybe, ten years, said, “It will be all right, honey,” Heather ran out of her room screaming, “I quit!” The job lasted four days.

(A brief aside: Heather likes to help animals as well as people. As the story goes, she once took care of an unvaccinated rabid hunting dog for two days, even though he was, she said, “foaming at the mouth.” Her parents never uttered a thing as “the dog was licking me and everything,” said Heather. She escaped near catastrophe and did not need to be treated for a possibly fatal rabies infection.)

Woodcut of a rabid dog (Credit: Middle Temple Library)

So, having determined early on that she could not live up to the educational standards set by her family, and having failed a very brief nursing home job, and with the opportunity to work in the family business. Heather settled into the position of shipping manager for Bradley Lifting; her mother served as VP, and her brother did purchasing.

She said that she put her “heart and soul into the place.” She was “on-call 24/7” and was happy as she provided for and raised her two daughters by herself (she and her husband split up when the girls were two and four).  

The very successful family business was bought by Xtek in 2008 with the promise that the current staff would remain. But that standard gratuitous assurance was not kept, and Heather was fired. This had been her life for 29 years. She was “furious.”

Back to Nursing

By then, both of her daughters were in college, and Heather was suddenly adrift. She gave herself two weeks to pout and two weeks to be angry.  And as she was lying on the sofa,” looking at “shadows on the wall,” thinking about what to do to “make this a better place,” and as she “always loved people,” she decided to try nursing again.  

She took a two-week course to be a certified Home Health Aide and scored 100% on the final exam. She quickly moved on and enrolled in a program to qualify as a CNA. Again, she scored 100% on the tests. While she was working as a CNA in one of the local nursing homes, one of her colleagues was fired: it was claimed that she was “too nice” and “spent too much time with people.” Heather was appalled by this harsh criticism of compassionate caring and by what she witnessed day to day at the nursing facility. She did not hesitate to share her thoughts about the place with anyone who asked for her opinion.

She needed to move away from nursing homes and, at 48, she finally felt confident enough in her abilities to enroll in an LPN program. It had been 30 years since she had done schoolwork. When she took the pre-admission math and science tests, she didn’t pass. But she was not going to give up. So she got a tutor, used the math.com website, and did everything she could “just to be better.” The result? She got a 100% score when she took the tests a second time. So she enrolled and easily completed the 11-month program. 

By then, it was 2011, and time to start her nursing career, when she had an odd recurring dream. She saw herself measuring and testing urine samples. Some dreams, it seems, are fulfilled, and Heather got a job as a procedure nurse in Urology at Memorial Osteopathic Hospital. She worked with Dr. Mohammad Bhatti (whom she respected as an innovative surgeon) and enjoyed it there, but she had to move on when he left and went to New Jersey to practice. She needed to find another job because she had, in her words, “these children!”

The former Memorial Osteopathic Hospital
 (Credit: Jim Hayman Studio)

Heather then took an office nursing position with Dr. Jeffrey Perry at Family Medicine in Manchester. She was basically ready, but she wasn't too familiar with the pediatric aspects of the practice. Two weeks after she started work, the more experienced LPN in the office, the nurse who was to serve as her teacher, had a stroke and couldn’t return to work. So Heather had to “figure out everything” by herself. She did that, and she loved working with children.

Her Daughters

Speaking of kids, though Heather had been told by her doctor that she could never get pregnant, she did conceive, and,  as we have seen, had two daughters. As she raised them essentially by herself, she let them know that, unlike her example, they were definitely going to go to college. She tried to prepare them for this by exposing them to a large “volume of words” (starting when they were in the womb) that they could rely on to navigate the world. And she taught them about the importance of diversity and to never judge people by their appearance.

But things were not easy. Both Kate and Heidi have had serious health problems, and their fierce mother went to great lengths to make sure they received the expert medical care they needed. 

Even if it meant that she would, for example, have to drive to specialty medical centers in Hershey or Philadelphia each morning for a while before starting her own work in York. Even if it meant that she had to put herself at risk to rescue them from harmful situations with their dangerous “friends.”  Even if she had to quickly fabricate a threatening scenario with a one-sided phone call in the iconic manner of legendary Bob Newhart, to force the hospital to release her daughter.

Bob Newhart taking a call (Credit: CBS)

Or if it meant that she would one day sneak into a facility “through the morgue” and portray herself as a staff nurse to get to the head of the hospital to convince them to either discharge her daughter, or simply “take her” (to keep as their child) since she already had “another one at home!”

Heather admitted to me that she was (often) frustrated and (sometimes) angry, and felt pushed to the limit as a parent. She realized she was “trying to be too many people.” But Heather doesn’t give up easily, and she remains close with her girls. She feels that both of her daughters are “surreal.” And she is especially proud of Kate and Heidi for triumphing over their early challenges. Both women have achieved much: Kate became a Naturopathic doctor, and Heidi "did an apprenticeship in development and structure." 

Resuming the Nursing Story

After that detour, we can return to Heather’s nursing. With Dr. Perry, she kept things “rolling along” in the office, and she felt that she was in a good place. But after a few years, her winding path led her to the Elmwood Medical Center with Dr. Gregory Otte and Dr. Carl (Sam) Colombo. Alongside them, she learned a good deal about the broad field of general internal medicine. She learned how to help care for patients with infectious diseases from another physician in the practice, Dr. William Wright. After a while, the office was moved to Whiteford Road.

Dr. Colombo

While there, she did nursing, of course, and all sorts of other things, including monitoring office safety, doing routine maintenance, and putting out fires. (Yes, actual fires–when the wood-chip mulch around the building ignited through spontaneous combustion, Heather rushed out and promptly extinguished the flames.) She worked closely with Dr. Colombo until 2024. 

So, after years of working with younger patients, she expanded her interests to the care of the elderly, and she developed some expertise with these patients. But when she felt that the compensation for her work didn't match her new advanced skills, her path was altered again. When they offered her  part-time hours, she turned it down to focus on her "blossoming marriage."

At this point, Greg, her new husband, suggested she take some time off. She agreed, and the original “five or six months” turned into ten, and she “loved it.”  

Greg West and Marriage

Heather met Greg West through a mutual friend. His wife died after a long and challenging illness. Six months later, when Greg's and Heather's paths crossed, he had, in his grief, gained a lot of weight.  Heather offered to help him as a personal trainer.  Over the next few months, he lost seventy pounds by following her careful and strict exercise and nutrition plan. And he did well until he suffered an ACL injury that forced him to become sedentary, after which he regained weight. ("When something happens to you, the worst thing you can do is to sit," noted Heather.)

Greg and Heather were married by a Justice of the Peace on “7/24/24 at four o’clock” in the afternoon in Stony Creek, Connecticut. After the ceremony, without changing out of her wedding dress, they went for lobster at a local beer joint where several people happily bought the newlyweds drinks. That night, they stayed at the classy Thimble Island Bed & Breakfast. They stayed in the room just vacated by the brilliant and still busy 89-year-old Julie Andrews (who was there for a puppet show).

Thimble Island Bed & Breakfast (Credit: TIBB)

Away from Nursing

During Heather’s time away from nursing, her “free” time, she was able to focus on her other passions. She told me that she has a deep love for people and is fulfilled when she comes to their aid. And she has loved to work out physically since she was nine, when she officially informed her parents of this interest. So, with time away from patients, she could teach more fitness classes at the York Jewish Community Center (where, according to the large banner across the front of the building, “Everyone is Welcome”). Heather has been a steady asset at the JCC for nearly 30 years, and this is where I first encountered her unique energy decades ago at the pool. 

She teaches several different types of classes (including water aerobics and intense cycling) about ten hours a week and, as noted, is a personal trainer. But she is particularly fulfilled when she is helping, as she says, “physically-challenged people,” including those with Parkinson’s and related conditions, in the innovative and well-received Momentum program. It is said that the potential benefits of regular moderate or vigorous exercise for those with Parkinson's may include delayed onset of the disease, slowing of progression, and lessening of symptoms. 

She said that she ''did a lot of research to find out how best to help people with Parkinson’s live better and more safely. And in her class, they dance, they lift weights, they do circuits, they play Frisbee, they do balance exercises, and they just have a good time. She teaches them how to fall without getting hurt and how to get off the floor when they do fall. The group element adds the important benefit of regular, familiar social interaction for individuals who may become isolated due to their disease. 

The York Jewish Community Center (Credit: York JCC)

She believes that her own life experience, including the nagging sense that she was never good enough, could never live up to the high expectations and standards of her family, helped her see what’s important in life. In her mid-sixties, she is “beyond the drama stage.” And she brings her boundless enthusiasm for life into her work (if she would even call it work) at the JCC.

Heather feels she is a nurse “24/7” and when things happen at “The J” and quick action is needed, Heather has been there. She does not hesitate to respond if someone collapses due to low blood pressure, has an apparent acute heart event, or has seizures. She will make sure they are safe, and she will be certain that an ambulance is on the way (though she has found, to her dismay, that it might take 20 minutes for them to arrive). As she likes to say, “Your health is your wealth.”

But Heather will spring into action in other circumstances as well. For example, when she heard that a patron’s pocketbook was stolen, she ran after the cowardly thief and forcefully confronted him–she “jumped” him. “Here, take the handbag, lady!” was his frantic response before he ran off. The bag was returned to the victim of the crime, retired and beloved JCC Early Education teacher Fifi Spangler. You see, Heather will do whatever has to be done to help someone in need. 

At this point in life, as she nears the traditional retirement age of 65, Heather’s not sure if she’s finished with nursing, a career that, for her, as someone who enjoys a wide variety of experiences, has been personally rewarding owing to its vast array of different practice opportunities. 

Looking back, Heather realized that everything her parents told her turned out to be true.

Suggested Readings:

1. Langeskov-Christensen M, Franzen E. Grondahl Hvid L, et al. "Exercise as medicine in Parkinson's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2024;96:1077-1088. (Regular exercise--of any sort--may delay the onset of the disease, may slow the progression, and may alleviate symptoms.)

2. Qiu Y, Fernandez-Garcia B, et al. "Exercise sustains the hallmarks of health." J Sport Health Sci. 2023 Jan;12(1):8-35. (The authors of this comprehensive review conclude that "exercise induces adaptive responses throughout the entire body" and that the effects are profoundly health-promoting. They state that "the most ancient and potent 'medicine' known to mankind that promotes healthspan is the engagement in organized, repeated and purposeful physical activities, or exercise training.")

3. Tobell, Dominique A. "The transformation of American nursing." Issues in Science and Technology, Vol. XXXIX, No. 3, Spring 2023. (As opposed to procedure-based training, the new model of undergraduate nursing education, starting in the 1950s, "emphasized science-based learning, clinical thinking, and patient-centered practice." And a prime goal was to treat patients as "total persons." )

By Anita Cherry 3/20/26

Mindy Parks, RN: Nurse Ratched? Not Really, (shhh...don't tell anyone).

Mindy Parks, RN

She said that her father, a physical therapist, was “big in York Hospital.” All of his friends were from his work, and she remembers being “surrounded by doctors.” She recalls going with him to Barley’s nursing home and to an Easterseals location “near Vo-Tech.” She remembers her father gently dipping a patient’s hands into melted paraffin to ease their arthritic pain. These vivid memories are like they were “just yesterday.”  But the indelible images were formed more than fifty years ago, as her father had a melanoma and died on Christmas Eve when nurse Mindy Parks was three. 

She cannot forget taking his socks off after their trip to Hershey for the "Ice Capades" and asking him about the dark spot on his foot. And she can still visualize the lines painted on his chest to guide the futile radiotherapy. But young Mindy was not permitted to attend her father’s funeral, and she wonders whether it would have helped her emotionally to have been there.

Her mother worked as a hairdresser at York’s Misericordia Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, and her grandmother served as the facility’s receptionist. Encouraged to join them, Mindy spent a few summers “with the nuns.” When she was “forced” to volunteer at another nursing home (Colonial Manor) on the other side of town, she helped out with the Arts and Crafts program. She said she “couldn’t stand it,” and she vowed to “never” work with patients again.

Early Schooling and First Jobs

A year after her father passed away, her mother began a serious relationship, but she didn’t get married again until twelve years later. So she raised Mindy and her two (considerably) older brothers as a single parent. As a result, Mindy was “shuffled” among her grandparents to help out. And as she was “with older people” and had “no real direction,” all she did, she said, was “eat and gain weight.” Being “the fat kid” (one of only three) in school, she was picked on and bullied. She withdrew. School became unimportant, though she did well enough in math to consider going into accounting.

She often came home from school to an empty house (her brothers were out), and she sat in front of the TV. She started working at the Weis supermarket (just a few blocks from home) when she was 15, because she “had to.” And as her job soon began to mean more to her than school, she developed a strong work ethic.  

In fact, Mindy didn’t enjoy learning at all at Suburban High School, and “barely passed.” After she had a falling out with her mother, she decided she needed to be on her own. She moved into an apartment and required another job to support herself. She found work at Kay Jewelers. A few years passed, and as Mindy was still struggling to find herself, she took the SATs several times. She tried a few courses at York College, but didn’t have a good experience. 

With her knack for numbers, she took classes in “bookkeeping, or accounting, or something,” she vaguely recalled, but didn’t finish the full program. She continued to work at the supermarket, and found a job with a family-owned jewelry store, White’s. She worked hard (including putting in a lot of overtime) and eventually had enough money to buy her first house. But, she admitted, during this time she “wasted a lot of money buying friendship or love.”

White's Jewelry Shop (Uncredited and undated photo from Yelp)

Mindy focused on customer service at White’s, and she enjoyed helping people. She treated everyone equally, “whether they came in for a (watch) battery or a Rolex.” She liked the people and knew, she said, “not to judge a book by its cover.” And she learned a lot about people. For example, she reminded the engineers looking for the perfect engagement ring for their fiancée that “all she cares about is how pretty it looks.” 

Two Unanticipated Events and the Turn to Nursing

Her plan at the jeweler’s was to one day take over the shop. And as the hyped Y2K event (marking the year 2000) approached, this seemed possible. We were warned that computers wouldn’t know what to do when the new millennium arrived since their internal clocks stored the year in two digits, and that things would get messy. 

According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, “the fear was that when clocks struck midnight on January 1, 2000, affected computer systems, unsure of the year, would fail to operate and cause massive power outages, transportation systems to shut down, and banks to close. Widespread chaos would ensue.” 

As the threat of the end of the world led to panic buying and hoarding. White’s (including Mindy) made a lot of money; they were “selling stuff like there was no tomorrow,” she said. But the heady business cycle would change abruptly less than two years later, on September 11, 2001.  After that shock, “nobody was buying jewelry,” and Mindy needed to look elsewhere for a reliable income.

After selling jewelry and working at the Weis supermarket for 13 years, and in her thirties, with her early-life experiences in healthcare, Mindy thought about going into nursing. She looked into LPN and CNA programs at Vo-Tech.  One of her good customers, a psychiatrist no longer in practice, Dr. Marilyn Adam, saw her skills with people and encouraged her to pursue the LPN track. This tipped the scales, and Mindy began her new career. She was able to work part-time as she took (and paid for) the 11-month LPN program. She did well and won a few awards. She surprised herself: “Who knew I would love to learn!?

York Newspaper clipping of Mindy's LPN graduation
(Mindy was awarded a certificate of excellence in "Theory."
And she was recognized for perfect attendance. 

After completing the program in 2002, she took a position at York Hospital. She said that she “gave meds and did dressing changes and stuff like that.” After she was there for a few months, one of her patients set her up on a blind date with her son, the man who would later become her husband.

From LPN to RN to Charge Nurse

And after working as an LPN “for a year or two,”  Mindy saw that she “could do this.” So she moved forward and enrolled in an online RN program with Excelsior University (before it was announced that the hospital would restrict the nursing staff to RNs).  She studied intently and taught herself nursing, sociology, and psychology (she always did well with “psych patients” because, she said with a quick laugh, she “had a lot of training at home”). 

As she worked on her Associate’s degree, including weekend clinical time, Mindy figured out how to take tests. And when she did the required in-person evaluations in Indiana and Ohio, seeing patients, she knew what to expect and carefully “followed their script.” She finished the program, did an externship, and passed the NCLEX-RN exam for her RN license.

At first, Mindy spent time on a few floors at the hospital where she didn’t quite fit in. Moving around, she eventually found her niche on the Ortho-Trauma-Neuro floor in 2008, and she has been there ever since. She loves what she does, and as she developed more confidence in her abilities two years ago, she became “charge nurse,” where she is responsible for overseeing the nursing needs of the entire floor of up to 57 patients. Her goal, she told me, is “to keep the ship sailing nice and smooth.”

Reflecting on Changes

In the 23 years she has been at York Hospital, she feels that while the basics of nursing have not changed much (despite the emphasis on evidence-based practice), it seems to her that the nurses have. 

(An aside: What is the essence of what it means to nurse--a term derived from words meaning to nourish or to nurture? According to Sarah DiGregorio, nursing is a holistic endeavor that addresses the physical, emotional, social, and even spiritual needs of the cared-for individual. As such, practicing comprehensive nursing is a remarkably complicated undertaking, and it is particularly challenging to apply these ideals of care in an acute hospital setting.)

Mindy noted, with an element of chagrin, that some nurses under her charge are “task-oriented” rather than being focused on the patient. Their screens on their mobile computer carts  display icons that inform them of what they have to do, ”how to do their job.”  While such reminders of the many things that need to be addressed during a 12-hour shift may be helpful, the nurses may be inadvertently distracted from their primary responsibility, that of caring for the patient.  Mindy often reminds her staff that they are there for the patient; the patient is not there for them. 

Sue Ludwig, RN

As a tough preceptor (her stepfather called her “Nurse Ratched” even before she went into nursing), she instructed her trainees to talk to their patients to get to know them as people with a history. Don’t “just give them a pill and rush out of the room!” she said.  She had learned that taking time, and asking patients about their work, for example, encouraged them to open up, and this quickly helped build a therapeutic relationship.

She admitted that it’s easier to do this at night, her usual shift, when there’s less commotion on the floor and more time to be with the patient. (Mindy still stays in touch with one of her own formative nursing preceptors, Sue Ludwig, and they frequently take walks together. Mindy recalls often saying this to Sue: “Let me do it myself.”) 

But forming a nurturing relationship between the nurse and her patient doesn’t seem to be the stated intent of a recent hospital innovation: An AI-powered virtual nursing program. This commercial system is designed, according to the WellSpan Health website, to allow “a nursing assistant to use a computer module to remotely monitor patients who are at risk for falls, are forgetful, or may be impulsive about (sic) pulling out lines or tubes needed for their care.”  

But, continuing, it may also allow “a nurse to use a computer to remotely conduct discharges, admissions, and patient education.”  So there are now huge flat-screen monitors in each room, complete with two-way audio and video. Patients can be watched from afar throughout their stay, and they can be discharged by someone, somewhere, who has never touched them or even seen them in the flesh. The actual discharge nurse on the floor has to do something, said Mindy, even if it is just handing the patient their discharge papers.

(After some time, will the nurse on the screen be a live person using AI, or a sophisticated AI-generated image of a person indistinguishable from the real thing? We will almost certainly be encountering this dilemma soon as a result of the remarkable power of machine learning and the ongoing--and global--shortage of nurses.)

A Bachelor's Degree and a Managerial Position

Advancing her education, Mindy received a Bachelor’s degree online from the rigorous Chamberlain University College of Nursing. Since she was “horrible” in high school English, she had to teach this to herself. But she “loved school so much” by then that she made sure that her assignments were sent in at 12:01 on the day they were due, so hers would be the first. 

During the two-year program, she wrote several papers on the ideal patient-to-nurse ratio (4 to 1 seems about right) and the harmful metabolic consequences of ingesting large amounts of prepared food or (especially) drink containing high-fructose corn syrup. The teacher showed some of her papers to the other students as examples of good work. Mindy was proud of that unexpected recognition. 

As part of the curriculum, she took a class on the Vietnam War. At first, she “hated” it and had to repeatedly refer to maps to orient herself. But as she learned about the horrors of the undeclared war and the means by which the soldiers coped  (by using morphine and marijuana to dull their senses) and met patients from Vietnam, the eye-opening class turned out to be her “favorite.” 

And, through this, she was able to recognize the acute severe PTSD reaction of a Vietnam veteran (“the guy went nuts”) who was mistakenly admitted to the one room on the third floor with a close-up view of the (busy) helicopter pad.  

Trying to Comfort Another Soldier in Vietnam
(Credit: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund)

(This reminded me of my experience in that very room in January 2025.  I was admitted to the hospital with a cerebral bleed and briefly lost the ability to speak or understand what was being said to me. When I was transferred from the ICU to a regular floor, Mindy–as the charge nurse on Tower 3–stopped by on her rounds. I was still aphasic, but I recognized her from years ago and was glad to see her. But that night, the flashing lights and the whirring noise as several helicopters landed and took off in the icy cold–it had snowed the night before–made me panic. I needed to get out of there. I had already scheduled an interview with a doctor for their story, and I couldn’t let them down. And I was quite fidgety, as I had not been given any medication for my COVID-19-triggered Parkinson’s since admission. My husband stayed by my side–in the bed!–and settled me down.)  

Returning to Mindy: At the time of the interview, she told me that she was preparing for a new role, that of Assistant Nurse Manager on her floor. Though she will be away from bedside nursing herself, she is looking forward to the challenge, as quality nursing, she said, is her passion.

And looking back, Mindy said that her father was a perfectionist and that if he had not died early, she would have been a lawyer or a doctor.  There is no question about that, she believes. And she is sure that her life would have been completely different. But I am just as certain that her father would have been extremely proud of how his daughter turned out and what she has accomplished on her own and on her own terms.

References and Suggested Readings:

1. Aiken LH, Clarke SP, Sloane DM, Sochalski J, Silber JH. "Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction." JAMA. 2002;288(16):1987–1993. (Each additional patient per nurse was associated with a 7%  increase in the likelihood of dying within 30 days of admission and a  23%  increase in the odds of nurse burnout.)

2. Bray, George er al. Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2004, Volume 79, Issue 4, 537-543. (The consumption of high-fructose corn syrup increased more than 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, "mirroring the rapid increase in obesity" in the US. But sucrose--table sugar--has nearly the same amount of fructose and is similar in its negative metabolic effects.)

3. DiGregorio, Sarah. Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World. New York: HarperCollins, 2023. (An extesively researched, well-written and important book by a journalist. In the reporting of the book she spoke ro "nurses who practice in thoughtful, innovative ways that respond to the innate right of every person and community to be valued and cared for," p. 200).

4. National Museum of American History, Behring Center. "Y2K" Accessed at https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/y2k.

Watercolor Sketch Anticipating Spring (Photo by SC)

By Anita Cherry 2/11/26

By the way, two volumes of these collected stories are now available on Amazon. Volume 1 is here, and Volume 2 is found here.

Volume 1

Volume 2