Have you ever spent half a century devoted to something? Fifty years in a career, for those of us without this experience, sounds as good as forever.
For Trudy Iverson, who spent the years 1964 to 2014 working as a nurse in a variety of wards, positions, health centres and towns, the work was never dull.
Iverson’s training began in 1961 at Holy Family Hospital in Prince Albert. At that time, Iverson said, beyond “a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary” there weren’t a lot of career options, but she was drawn to nursing above other available professions for two reasons.
“I was the oldest of 10 kids and I did a lot of care giving because my mother was having babies. She liked the hospital environment and she seemed to nurture that in us,” said Iverson.
Another subtle influence that Iverson recalls came through a teacher in high school.
“[She] would read every Friday. At that time she read a Cherry Ames book and she was a nurse.”
The Cherry Ames books were published from 1943 to 1968. Cherry Ames was sent on nursing adventures around the United States where she solved mysteries, demonstrating the capability and self-sufficiency of its hero and women in general. The first books in the series were written to entice young women to take up nursing during the Second World War. Nearly 10 years later, the books had inspired another young future nurse.
Iverson was hired on at Notre Dame Hospital — now the Battlefords Union Hospital — in North Battleford, following her training in Prince Albert in 1964. Over her 50 years in health care, Iverson saw technology change and many procedural improvements. “Some of it happens so slowly you just get accustomed to it,” said Iverson, but she still recalls the first years on the job with mild astonishment.
“There was a new building and so it became quite modern, but it was still, when I think back, archaic. Needles, we would reuse them and we would sharpen them. Rubber gloves, we would wash them and reuse them and check them for holes.
“We even reused catheters and intravenous tubing,” she added.
During her time with the hospital, Iverson saw the hospital change hands from the Catholic church to become the Battlefords Union Hospital and become modernized through the building renovation and new addition. She worked on each ward, from pediatrics to surgery, from nurse to supervisor.
“I started on maternity and then went to surgery. I worked a lot of nights when I came after my training. I worked on many wards and then the opportunities came for me to supervise. I was really lucky to have lots of changes in all those years.”
Iverson felt comfortable in each position she held, although she enjoyed working in the wards, she said.
Working the wards, said Iverson, “it helped to anticipate.”
“When you're helping a surgeon with whatever he's doing, you have to anticipate his needs.”
Skilled nurses could and did anticipate the needs of those they cared for and who they assisted. In time, Iverson’s skill was noticed and she moved up the hospital ladder, becoming a supervisor and charged with helping develop the palliative care unit.
Nursing at Battlefords Union Hospital provided a steadily changing scene for Iverson. Though, eventually, she left the structured nursing of the hospital and began work with home care.
Recalling her time with home care, Iverson spoke of the contrasts between the facilitation of care.
“When you're out in the field,” she said, “you have to deliver whatever is needed for the client, you see exactly how they are [in need] and when you’re in a hospital, you don’t.”
When patients are admitted to the hospital, they are placed on the hospital’s schedule. Out of the hospital, people receiving home care try to regain a sense of habit and normalcy, and the nurses in home care help clients with tasks they were once able to do themselves.
After some time as a home care nurse, Iverson again had an opportunity for a change in her work environment.
“I did a bit of work up on Baffin Island. I did home care there,” she said.
“One of my friends was a northern nurse and she gave me the tools to seek that kind of work
“I went to Clyde River [on Baffin Island]. It was really quite different because many of the Inuit people only spoke Inuktituk, so you have to go into the home with an interpreter.
Iverson described her experience on Baffin Island as a gift, but one that she would have said no to earlier in her career.
“A long time ago when I thought about doing something different, this young nurse said to me, ‘you know it's only a phone call away.’ But when you have a husband and a family, it's not that easy. When Baffin Island came along it was OK for me to do that because my husband was able to do his thing and our daughter was grown.”
By the time Iverson had left for Baffin Island, she’d been working in nursing for nearly forty years and had already retired once. While some folks may get more settled to their way of life as time goes by, Iverson took it as an opportunity for something different.
“I retired and I felt like I needed to do something different so this opportunity came up. It's really good to do changes. I think it's good for everybody. To stay in a position for 20 or 30 years, you get kind of in a rut,” said Iverson.
Iverson spent around a year working in northern communities and she described the experience as eye opening.
“I went to four or five different communities. So you fly in and somebody comes and gets you at the airport and they all know that you're the stranger, so they'll come up to you and introduce themselves.
“Number one, I didn't know anybody and I didn't know the language and the weather was extremely cold because it was January,” recalled Iverson. “It’s like learning to walk again.”
But not everything was foreign and strange, she added.
“When you're caring for people, it's all the same. The needs and the health of people is all the same. It's all giving. Every day [on Baffin Island] was like a gift because you had all these experiences and I felt working long-term care was also a gift because you learnt about people.
“There's a new facet of care.”
Working on Baffin Island proved to be a highlight of not only her career, but her life. When she returned home to Saskatchewan, Iverson was still not ready to spend her days lounging in retired bliss. Instead, she returned to work, this time as a casual worker at the long-term care facility in Edam.
This stage of her career is particularly close to Iverson’s heart. Both her parents were living in the facility, so working there, she said, was a privilege.
“I’d go there and look after them. Lot’s of people aren’t able to do that. I worked lots of nights and every night I could open my dad's door and check on him.”
Iverson retired for good in 2014, 50 years after she first started at the hospital in North Battleford. Because of nursing, Iverson said, she discovered her love of travelling. Thanks to her 50 years of experience nursing, Iverson is still ready to take on new changes and adventures. On her to-do list now is travelling to the Great Wall of China and the ancient Incan village of Machu Picchu in Peru's Andes Mountains.
As for anyone else deliberating a major life change, Iverson is all for it.
"Take the leap?" she wondered outloud before answering, "Oh, for sure."
