Me & the "Girls" (Tasha & Chelsea) on a walk in
1997.
(My girls both crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2002.)
Personal/Professional
History:
I was born in Washington, D.C. in 1943, the
middle child with older and younger brothers. There were no other
medical people in my family, but I was inspired to go into nursing by
the example of Dr.Thomas Dooley, who founded MEDICO (medical
organization serving southeast Asia) in the early 1960s before the
Vietnam War. I was also determined to commit my life to serving
others because of my strong religious background, having been
educated by nuns throughout my school years.
I graduated in 1965 from the Catholic
University of America in Washington, D.C., with a B.S.N. and entered
the Navy Nurse Corps for the first phase of my career. I was assigned
to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital near Chicago, Ill., and, for the
next two and a half years, helped to care for wounded men from the
Vietnam War who were only a few years younger than I . It was a very
moving and humbling experience. I have since found names of some of
the corpsmen I worked with on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in
Washington, D.C.
I met and married my husband, Jack
Phillips, in Chicago, and after discharge from the service went to
work for a county health department. Later I got the chance to teach
in an LPN program at Triton College and loved it, so went back to
Northern Illinois University to get my Masters Degree in Nursing so
that I might be qualified to teach in the RN-ADN program at the same
school. I really felt like I had found my niche in nursing education.
It was fun, challenging, had good hours, there was always something
new going on, and to have the chance to form and shape new nurses was
truly an honor and a privilege.
In 1978, I moved to Orlando after a divorce
and with a small son to be near my parents who had retired in Mt.
Dora. Valencia happened to be starting two admissions that same year,
and I was hired to teach Fundamentals of Nursing to the first January
class. Pat Woodbery, who had also just been hired, started out with
me with that same class in 1978.
So, I've been teaching here at VCC for the
past twenty-four years and have really enjoyed it. The student
contact and relationships will always be my favorite things, with the
opportunities to learn and grow in the nursing field a close second.
I have been happily married to Jeff Ludy, Ed.D., R.R.T., Program
Director of the Cardiopulmonary Sciences Program at UCF for the past
fourteen years.
In 1994, I had the chance to go back to
graduate school yet another time and finished my Nurse Practitioner
Certification in Adult Health at the University of South Florida in
Tampa by the end of 1995. This preparation has helped me be a better
teacher with a deeper knowledge base of primary care needs especially
as we expand our clinicals into the community. I am thankful for all
the opportunities for growth, collegiality and personal satisfaction
that my 39 year career in nursing has brought me and hope that my
students may experience much of the same.
To end on a lighter note, I am not just
interested in Medicine and Nursing. I love literature, theater, music
and painting. And, as you could guess, I also love Golden Retrievers;
Jeff and I plan to raise them for Canine Companions when we
retire.
Personal/Professional
History:
