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Cheryl Seavey Murphy, 77N, and Susan Seavey Forte, 80N, grew up in a household equipped with medical models. There was one of the human heart and one of the human eye. And then there was the sisters' family, an integral part of Emory's health care community for more than half a century.
     Their father, the late Paul Seavey, 49C, 53M, was an Emory physician and professor emeritus, and their mother, Mary Ann Seavey, a nurse. "Our parents met while working in the emergency room at Emory Hospital in the early 1950s. Our father was a medical student at the time. They got married and went through his residency together, two years at Duke and two at Emory," says Murphy. Not surprisingly, more than a few members of their family have devoted themselves to patient care and to the Emory community at large.
     "All of our lives, we heard stories about caring for patients," Murphy adds. "We'd go to my father's office, and occasionally, we'd do hospital rounds with him. As teenagers, we [including their sister Carol Yeatts, 78C] worked in The Emory Clinic, and on holidays, we'd take candy to the nurses' station. My sisters and I are compassionate people and have a need to take care of others."
     
Like mother, like daughters
Which is precisely why Murphy and Forte decided to go into nursing just as their mother had. Forte began her career caring for pre- and postoperative surgical patients. "I worked in general and vascular surgery and absolutely loved it. Compared with the medical floor, I thought it was so much more hands-on: changing dressings, putting in tubes, starting IVs. I did that for six years, and then I worked part-time on IV nutrition," she says. Forte now works for a home health care agency, escorting elderly patients to medical appointments and helping patients and their families understand the medical information gleaned from those visits.
     Like her younger sister, Murphy decided to work with surgical patients, but inside the operating room. "My goal was to become proficient enough to be on the open-heart surgery team, which I did. I worked only seven years, and toward the end of my tenure, I became the assistant head nurse," she says.
     During those years, Murphy and Forte's time at Emory University Hospital overlapped, and they ended up taking care of some of the same patients—Forte before and after surgery and Murphy during. In fact, the sisters cared for a few of their father's patients and even a few of Murphy's husband's patients as well.
     "We had one very special patient," recalls Murphy. "At the time, my husband [Emory radiologist Fred Murphy, 77C, 81M] was a resident and had taken care of her at Grady. She had a severe, debilitating illness that necessitated a transfer to Emory. She lived a long time, and we all became very attached to her; she had multiple sessions in the operating room."
     "She didn't have much family," adds Forte. "The people at Emory became her family. We would see her in the operating room, and Cheryl and I would see her for the daily care on the floor. We became passionate about her. Eventually, she had to have some do-or-die surgery. Cheryl and I talked the night before and then during the day—and she didn't make it. Everyone who had taken care of her was crushed. We all remember her to this day, and it's been 20 years."
     
     
A new generation of health care models
It was around that time, more than 20 years ago, that Murphy's daughter, Susie, was born. Last year, Susie received her BSN from the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. "During my first year at Emory College, I woke up one morning and literally had the feeling I needed to go to nursing school," recalls Susie. "I walked over to the school that day and met with the admissions counselor and said I wanted to apply.
     "While I was in nursing school, a lot of people asked why I didn't go to medical school. I didn't want to go to medical school. Nursing takes a holistic approach to medicine. They really teach you how to treat the person—that you have to acknowledge emotional, spiritual, and physical health. And that's what I like about nursing. You have the medicine side, and you have the people side."
     Susie grew up listening to "nurse mom and doctor dad" dinner conversations, where the talk more often than not revolved around medicine. And like her aunt and mother, she and her brother, David, an Emory College junior, grew up with "the heart model and eye model."
     Last summer, Susie began her professional nursing career in the pediatric neurosurgery and neurology ward at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. "I chose to take the job there because I love the staff," she says. "We use a team approach to care for our patients. I've loved kids for as long as I can remember, and I knew right away that I wanted to go into pediatrics. The child is your patient, but you work with multiple family members. I love the family approach."
     
     
Partners in caring and education
The "family approach" prompted the Emory Woman's Club to support the School of Nursing's Centennial scholarship fund-raising campaign. As Murphy explains, her father's
lifelong commitment to patients and the University led her to School of Nursing Dean Marla Salmon and, in turn, led Salmon to the Woman's Club.
     "My father was interested in everything at Emory," Murphy says. "When Dr. Salmon became the dean, he couldn't wait to go meet her and see the new [nursing] building. And that started the relationship that I have with Marla today and between the Emory Woman's Club and the nursing school."
     In fact, last year the woman's club put on a benefit dinner and raised more than $8,000 for the school's Centennial Scholarship Fund, a permanent funding source aimed at attracting high-quality nursing students, regardless of their financial means. Forte and Murphy say their father was extremely supportive of his patients, nurses, and the nursing profession.
     "His legacy is in us forever. My father loved what he did and he cared so much for Emory and his patients," says Murphy. "That's what has flowed from him to us over the years."
     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
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