Innerviews: Even after 52 years in nursing, she can't walk away

If there's an aspect of nursing Audrey Schmidt hasn't experienced, she'd be hard-pressed to name it. Her been-there-done-that career spans five decades and embraces about every duty imaginable -- OB, pediatrics, ER, ICU and CCU, IV therapy, home care, industrial nursing and,well, you get the idea.

She'snot finished yet. At73, a grudging concession to aging prevents hands-on nursing. But she putsall that experience to work as a coordinator in Charleston Area Medical Centerspatient transfer center.In a command post at CAMC General, shejugglesbed assignments, admission reservationsandallsorts of other requests fromall three CAMC hospitals.

She works part-time, three tofour days a week, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Who else but a veteran with a sense of dedication would want those hours?

Nursing is her life.From earlygirlhoodon the farm, she dreamedofa nursing career. A fullscholarship to nursing school was like a gift from God.She graduatedin 1962 and neverlooked back.

Fifty-two years and counting ...

"I grew up in the country on the family farm next to Kanawha State Forest. We had cattle and I had to learn to milk the cow. I can remember making butter. We moved from the farm when I was about 11. My father was employed at Libbey-Owens Ford and was an electrician who wired a lot of homes in South Hills.

"They used to give me nursing kits atChristmas.I thought I wanted to be a little nurse. Then my brother was involved in an accident when he was 16 and was hospital-bound for several months with a crushing kneeinjury. He ended up in a rehabilitation center. He was four years older. I was with him a lot at the hospital. I thought then that I definitely wanted to be a nurse.

"I graduated fromStonewall Jackson in 1959 and was a candy striper all through high school. Sarah Ethel Rose was our teacher at Stonewall. She knew I was faithful and liked the hospital. The day before graduation,the phone rang. Shewantedme to come back to the school. She asked about my plans. I said I wanted to go to nursing school but hadn't heard if I'd beenaccepted. I told her I had been accepted to a scrub technician school at Memorial and could always go there and work my way through nursing school.

"She said she had solved my problem. Shehad a full nursing scholarship for me. I almost passed out. I got my firstacceptance at Kanawha Valley Hospital. I got a call later from General, but I was already committed.

"When the Kanawha Valley school closed,we had seven months of classes left, and they transferred us to General.

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Innerviews: Even after 52 years in nursing, she can't walk away