Oral History Minute: A health worker's perspective from Gene Ray
This week's oral history minute asks us to take a moment to reflect on the incredible people who serve in our healthcare system. Please listen to or read this interview with Gene Ray from Boone, North Carolina. Gene worked as a nurse at Watauga Medical for many years. He shared some stories with us about his time as a nurse.
"I don't think that a lot of people could go through and be nurses because of the situations that you are in, the things that you see, which goes back to the little things I was tellin’ you about, what you see here, and the medicines that you give and are responsible for, every one of ‘em and you're responsible for each patient that's under you, you really are and it's, now like I said, not your RNs but your lower employees and stuff like that under there, they, a lot of ‘em don't make it because in my class we started out with 22 people and we graduated 12, so it's very tedious work and like I said some of things you see in there, it really breaks your heart.
One lady told me I would be there when she passed. She had in her bedside table all of her clothes she wanted, the wig she wanted, she told me how to put her hands and feet before her daughters could see her. When they came to me and said, “I think it's about time” I went and I told the daughters to stay outside, knowing that she had already passed. I went in and got her all fixed up. I did not expect to be there but she did, she knew.⠀
There was one rule that we had to follow was, what you see here, what you do here, stays here when you leave here…You show your emotions either when you get home or to some of your colleagues. When she passed, I went behind the nurse’s station and cried."