Growing up in Forest Park during the 1950s and 60s, two sisters shared the same "Leave it to Beaver" neighborhood, warm family dinners and good advice from their mother.

Helen Ashmore Buie, who was raised during the Great Depression, told her daughters, Marlynn and Joyce, to find a profession that would allow them to support themselves. The girls listened and chose nursing.

BARRY WILLIAMS/Special (ENLARGE)

Sisters Marlynn Jones (standing) and Joyce Bridges are nurses. 'We're not alike, but we're so close, especially since our mother died in 2004,' Jones said. 'Nursing has been a good profession for both of us.'

"Mom was very adamant that we have a profession," said Marlynn Jones, APRN, BSN, 58, who works at the Clayton County Board of Health.

In high school, Jones aspired to be a ballerina, but then heeded her mom's counsel. She decided to make dance a hobby and enrolled at Georgia State University to become a teacher.

"In my second year, I heard that they were starting a nursing program and my ears perked up," Jones said. "As a kid, mom was always volunteering me to stay with people who needed help.

"I lived with my grandmother, who had stomach cancer, for three months before college and really enjoyed helping her. I think that sparked my interest in nursing."

Jones switched majors and graduated with Georgia State's first BSN class in 1973. After marrying her childhood sweetheart, Kenneth, she taught dance and worked nights at DeKalb Medical in Decatur. They've been married for 37 years.

When Jones took her baby to the health department to get shots, she met a former classmate who told her about an opening there.

"I took the job because it was close to home but as the years passed, I fell in love with public health," said Jones, who earned her nurse practitioner degree from Emory University in 1986. "It's so different from hospital nursing. I love the autonomy and patient contact, the follow-up care. I like the preventative aspects of what we do, and I love the teaching."

Public health nursing is more than giving shots to babies, Jones said. Three days a week she works in specialty services, treating patients with infectious diseases and giving physical examinations to women.

The other two days of the week, she works with adolescents at a Forest Park teen center. It's her favorite part of the job.

"You need a whole different approach and set of communication skills to work with teens," she said.

Jones leads programs in abstinence-based pregnancy prevention, HIV prevention, weight control and smoking cessation.

"Nursing is a great career for lots of reasons, but one is that there are so many things you can do with it," she said.

A different path

Jones' sister took a different route to a career in nursing. Joyce Bridges, RN, BSN, 54, wanted to be a veterinarian, but teachers told her that girls didn't do that.

So Bridges, who owns a 16-acre farm in McDonough, choose another profession.

"Nursing was the last thing on my mind, but I knew I didn't want to teach or be a secretary, and my sister had some influence, so I ended up in nursing," she said.

It took awhile for Bridges to warm up to the job.

"It didn't immediately capture my heart or imagination, but being in the emergency room felt like really doing something," Bridges said.

She worked in the ER at South Fulton Medical Center in East Point for 15 years. "You had to think quickly and act proactively, and you weren't hide-bound by the mundane stuff," Bridges said.

Bridges was playing oboe in an orchestra in Clayton County when a fellow musician told her about his job with the state Office of Regulatory Services. Having finished her bachelor's degree in nursing and ready for a career change, Bridges got a job there inspecting health care facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. She traveled across the state conducting onsite inspections to ensure that facilities were in federal compliance.

"It was so much fun. Ten years flew by before I even knew I was working," Bridges said.

She became a specialist in complaint investigations and worked with the GBI on neglect and misappropriation cases.

"Most nurses don't even know this job exists, but it takes a nurse, because you are constantly looking at standards of care," she said. "When standards aren't met, then you have to decide if harm was done, and the severity of it.

"It takes a solid clinical background and [the job] gives you a comprehensive perspective of how the health care system works."

In 2001, Bridges moved up to head the Georgia Division of Public Health's Cancer State Aid treatment program. The program funds cancer treatment services for eligible, low-income Georgia residents who don't have health insurance.

When she started, Bridges found the program "in chaos." She's proud that her team has increased the number of patients served and the number of hospitals, cancer centers and pharmacists that provide services.

"You know you're helping people who wouldn't get treatment without the program. You get a thank-you note and it's glorious," she said.

Bridges was able to increase the program's budget from $1.5 million to $5 million annually. Just before she retired in February, Bridges' team won the 2007 Team of the Year Governor's Award for Customer Service. Being selected from more than 400 nominations was the highlight of her career.

"Nursing is never simple, never easy, but it's one of the best fields — if you can hack it — because it's so broad in scope," Bridges said.

Between them, the sisters have worked in many facets of health care: bedside nursing, emergency room nursing, direct patient care, regulatory work, administration and public health.

"We're not alike, but we're so close, especially since our mother died in 2004," Jones said. "Nursing has been a good profession for both of us."