Amazing Grace

Joanna shares more about her journey in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM5lUPgHyac

What were you doing in 1958? OK, some of us weren’t even born 57 years ago, but Joanna Grace was just embarking on an amazing career in nursing that has spanned five decades.

Joanna graduated from Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in 1958, one of 28 women who undertook so powerful an educational experience that “we were able to work anywhere in the world.”

Joanna is the only remaining member of her graduating class still working at Memorial.

Her love of nursing was planted at age 11 while growing up in Goshen. Her grandfather, J.M. Long, who was afflicted with cancer, was being care for by his family. For the next several months, Joanna routinely brought food and water to him in bed. “I knew then I wanted to be a nurse. It just felt right.”

On the first day of nursing school, after earning money while babysitting and working after school at Miller-Jones Shoe Store in Goshen, she showed up with the exact amount it cost for three years of nursing school – $368.95.

What made the three-year program marked by 12 hours a day of school and clinical work so effective was the physician commitment to teaching and engaging the nursing students.

Recognizing how important the instruction was to her, Joanna made it her mission to help teach and mentor younger nurses, so they too could be successful.

Joanna believes that effective training environment remains alive and well today, citing such programs as the Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program and the Memorial Hospital Pharmacy Residency Program. Intertwined with this focus on education is an unrelenting emphasis on improvement.

“As long as I’ve been here, Memorial has never been satisfied with the status quo. We are constantly looking for better ways to train people and better ways to care for our patients,” explains Joanna.

She takes pride in knowing that she too, in her own way, has contributed to the growth and success of Memorial. Joanna has left her mark on nearly every inpatient department, starting with surgery after graduating from nursing school. It wasn’t long before Joanna moved into a leadership role as an assistant head nurse.

As a young wife and mother, though, she worked at Memorial in the evenings. In the 70s, Joanna served as a clinical instructor and nursing supervisor, eventually obtaining the role of head nurse in the Intensive Care Unit.

As much as she enjoyed working for Memorial, new opportunities arose for Joanna that led her to hospitals in Peru, Indiana and Berrien Center, Michigan. She eventually returned to Memorial in the 90s to work as director of staffing at Memorial Home Care, as well as a critical care nurse at Memorial.

Nursing is as much a part of Joanna as anything in life. While it’s been her livelihood for more than 50 years, she also takes her role as mother of six children and grandmother of eight to heart.

Joanna transitioned from direct patient care in the 90s to an administrative supervisor, a role she continues in today as needed. Working inside Memorial’s Summit Center, she manages the nursing workflow across inpatient units, handles calls regarding policies and procedures and once again, using volumes of nursing knowledge, she helps coach and instruct nurses by phone and face-to-face.

A lot has changed in health care since 1958 and no one knows that better than Joanna, who has remained a valuable associate because she has adapted with the changing times.

“We live in a different environment. If you want to be productive and effective, you have to change. What I can bring to change is the good that I’ve learned from the past.”

Joanna has no immediate plans to retire from her PRN position any time soon – giving many at Memorial reason to be thankful. In the meantime, she will continue to be a leader, a mentor and best of all, what she loves best, a nurse.

“I’m a better mother, better wife, better friend because of being a nurse. If I had the opportunity, I would choose the same profession all over again.”

Hear Joanna in her own words. Click on the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM5lUPgHyac