Shirley Ifill, Wellstar Douglas Hospital

Shirley Ifill didn’t come to nursing by accident. She came to it after years of watching what compassion looks like when it matters most.

As a mother of seven, Ifill spent years at bedsides — not as a clinician, but as an advocate, a caregiver and, often, a lifeline for her children.

Doctors and nurses became a constant presence in her life, especially as her fourth child, Travis, battled sickle cell disease, strokes and a long, uncertain recovery that once stripped him of the ability to walk or speak.

“I was always around nurses,” Ifill said. “And I saw the love they gave — not just to him, but to all of us.”

Those experiences stayed with her.

So as her children grew up and started their own lives, Ifill made a decision that might intimidate many: She went back to school. She earned her nursing degree in 2021, moved to Georgia in 2023 and began a new career in her 50s — one driven by a deep understanding of what patients and families are going through.

Now, just two years into that career, Ifill is being recognized with an Excellence in Nursing award as part of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s annual Celebrating Nurses program. She was presented the award Thursday during a ceremony at Curate Event Space.

For Julie LaFontaine, a clinical leader at Wellstar Douglas Hospital who nominated Ifill, the recognition comes as no surprise.

“There’s different levels of caring, and Shirley embodies that,” LaFontaine said. “She can light up a room. She’s so joyful, so grateful to be a nurse — and when people love what they do, they tend to be good at it.”

Ifill’s path to nursing was anything but easy. Alongside her son’s health battles, she supported her mother through a rare and ultimately fatal cancer diagnosis. Years later, her then-husband suffered a devastating accident that left him in a coma for six weeks with a traumatic brain injury and extensive facial fractures.

Ifill rarely left his side.

“I was there 23 out of 24 hours a day,” she said.

He recovered, reinforcing what she had already begun to feel: She wanted to be the kind of person who helps others through the worst days of their lives.

But even as she pursued that goal, tragedy continued to strike. During nursing school, Ifill lost a son and a granddaughter — one to violence, the other to a sudden asthma attack at just 11 years old.

Still, she pushed on.

“I can’t stop,” Ifill said. “Everything I start, I want to finish.”

That determination carried her through nursing school graduation and into the profession she had long envisioned.

Today, colleagues say what sets Ifill apart isn’t just her clinical growth — though that has come quickly — but the way she connects.

“She wants to know the ‘why,’” LaFontaine said. “If a patient refuses care, she doesn’t stop there. She figures out what’s behind it.”

Sometimes, that requires making small but meaningful adjustments, like warming washcloths for a patient who resists basic care. Other times, it’s simply listening.

“A patient wants to be heard,” Ifill said. “That’s the most important thing.”

She brings her own experiences into those conversations when it helps, whether it’s relating to families navigating chronic illness or patients facing other hardships. Her goal, she said, is simple: treat every patient like family.

“I always walk in with a smile,” she said. “I tell my patients: ‘I want to see you outside of here, at the grocery store, living your life.’”

LaFontaine said that mindset has a ripple effect.

“You can bring stress and negativity into a workplace and that spreads,” she said. “But gratitude, teamwork, compassion — that spreads, too. And Shirley brings that every day.”

Ifill has spent her first two years as a nurse at Wellstar Douglas Hospital, working on a stroke-certified unit — a setting that resonates deeply given her son Travis’ battles and his amazing turnaround. After hope for a normal life seemed lost, he had one of the nation’s first bone marrow transplants. Now in his 30s, Travis is thriving. The episode where he couldn’t walk or talk is a distant memory, Ifill said.

For Ifill, nursing is more than a career. It’s a continuation of everything she’s lived through — and everything she’s learned.