SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The year is 1977. The postage stamp cost 13 cents. Jimmy Carter was president. And a high school grad named Ann Vieths decided she wanted to try nursing out.
She has been doing it ever since.
Vieths became a licensed practical nurse in 1978, so if you do the math, she’s been nursing for 42 years.
The then Miesville, Minnesota girl says a couple of cousins were nurses and she thought she’d try it out. She apparently was very good at it.
“I think you have to have a lot of empathy you have to be a really good listener to have to be efficient in this world and proficient,” Vieths said. “You have to be able to multi-task,” she said.
Vieths kept going. She celebrated getting her nursing degree at the U of M in 1985.
She’s been through the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and everything in between, to this current pandemic. Vieths has been with families during the lows and the highs.
“When you see success or when you see failure, you cry with families you laugh with families you become really close with them,” she said.
It also brings you close to your work family, Vieths said. She is the charge nurse on her floor at Regions Hospital. It is not a designated COVID-19 floor. She said 17 years later there, she said she never dreads going in to work.
“We have a fantastic culture as Regions Hospital,” Vieths said. “I think there’s such great teamwork there,” she said.
But time impacts any industry. Vieths said one of the biggest changes she has seen is how much information is available to patients.
“Probably when I first started people just believed whatever the doctor said, but now there’s more questioning of what you’re doing and why are you doing this, which is good because our consumers have better knowledge than they did,” she said.
Vieths said she does plan to retire. There’s just one problem.
“Every day you learn something new and I always say that I can retire when I stop learning new things and I don’t think there’s any fear of that ever happening so I might just have to retire some day and know that I won’t know everything,” she said.
Her youngest daughter is now also on track to get her nursing degree. Vieth's advice for any future nurses?
“With nursing, there are so many different avenues, like you can go to a clinic you can work part time you can work full-time I think it’s important to find a job that fits your life,” she said.
“Don’t make your job be your life. You can always make more money, but you can’t buy time.”
You’d think time could would how you feel about your line of work. But not for this nurse who said she still enjoys it as much as the first day.
“It’s just been a wonderful life,” Vieths said.