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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." |
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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." |
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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." |
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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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