“Every patient, every time”
That means every patient gets what they need every time. The phrase became Stacy Waits’ mantra during her 38 years as a nurse.
“If the president is laying in that bed, or if a homeless person is laying in that bed, every patient gets what they should get — every patient, every time. I think that’s a big deal,” Waits said just before her retirement on June 30.
Although her philosophy about health care hasn’t changed over the decades, many other things have, Waits said. The biggest of which is nurse autonomy.
“When you look at when I became a nurse, we took care of the patient and gave the medicines they were ordered. We really didn’t question that much,” she said. “We didn’t have I think the authority that we have now, and I take that with autonomy, now nursing is very high functioning. And we’re just as smart as we were back then. We’ve come full circle into you’re the one that’s here. You’re the one for the patient. You’re the advocate for the patient.”
Nurses today can stand up for their patients, Waits said, adding: “The biggest change, I think, is the nurse evolving into a clinical practitioner that is very integral to the team. Whereas before, I had someone say to me, ‘All you do as a nurse is empty bedpans anyway,’ and that was not a health professional.”
How it began
Waits was introduced to health care when her mom decided the then-15-year-old needed a summer job, and that job would be at a nursing home her mom passed every day going to and from work.
“The staff … were tickled to have me because I could run up and down the hall all day long,” she said.
But the experience did more than put money in her pocket.
“I was astonished at how little attention they got, and how it was sad,” she recalled. “I still have, because of that, a place for elderly little people in my heart. That’s kind of always been where it started in that, I’m like, I have to do something about this. I have to become a nurse, because I can do better than this. And so I think that’s where it started. And I worked there until I graduated from high school and went to nursing school. And so I that’s really where it all started and why I wanted to become a nurse.”
Coming full circle
After graduating from Duluth High School, Waits earned her bachelor’s from Brenau, in Gainesville.
Her first nursing job was at the Northside Atlanta campus on a medical surgical unit in 1980, the same year she got married and bought a house.
Her new home was not far from the Northside Duluth facility, which prompted Waits to transfer from the main campus.
“I thought, ‘Why in the world am I driving all the way to Northside when I could drive four miles?’ and so I got a position (in Duluth) on the intermediate step down unit.”
“It was like coming home, and that was fine for me,” Waits said, noting that it felt like she’d come “full circle.”
Waits stayed there for two years before transferring to the intensive care unit. She went on to earn her master’s and became a clinical nurse specialist before transitioning into management in 2002.
Advice from a veteran
As she prepared for life without scrubs, Waits advised all health care workers — not just nurses — to find a good work/life balance.
“Your family comes before your job,” she said. “You have to pick a career. So when you pick that career, you’ve got to know what you’re committed to. And to commit to what you can commit to, you have to have that work life balance.
“You know, this is all I’ve ever done. I mean, from working in a nursing home as a nurse tech from the time I was 15, this is all I have ever done. I can’t imagine doing anything differently.”
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