How does a Lewisville farm girl turn out to be national Gerontological Nurse of the Year?  One step at a time.

1) Finish high school with an excellent report (both academic and athletic).
2) Graduate from the NC Baptist Hospital School of Nursing (while marrying and having two children).
3) Work second shift as a general surgery nurse for two years (at $3.27 an hour).
4) Become assistant manager in cardiothoracic surgery.
5) Serve as head nurse in cardiothoracic surgery for 23 years.
5) Move into renal and kidney transplant nursing, remaining for seven years.

Then Kathy Long finds her true love.  It happens at the Sticht Center, in the ACE unit (acute care for the elderly).  There her career merged into the evolution of gerontology as a specialty. Geriatric nursing was quick to follow, and there Kathy first learned that older adults deserve not only respect but special kinds of care.

For Kathy, a BS in nursing followed.  In 1993 she was listed as one of the Great 100 Nurses of the Year in North Carolina and later, as a fellow in the National Gerontological Nurses Association, she traveled to Rotterdam to tell a European nurses conference about what was happening in the U.S. and Winston-Salem.

As retirement approached, a friend suggested that Kathy not quit but apply to fill a vacancy at Senior Services’ Williams Adult Day Center on Cloverdale Avenue. That’s where now, as vice president, she has contact every single day with people who need geriatric care of a special kind.  Most of them are in some stage of dementia and attend the center for all or part of a day while their families are at work or in need of some respite time.

“We give person-centered care,” she said, “as opposed to patient-centered care.”  New approaches in music, healing touch, aroma therapy “can calm down an agitated person in 30 minutes.”  A new program at the Williams Center includes participants putting on headsets and listening to music personalized for each of them.  The center, with a staff of 27, has an enrollment of 130 and on an average day cares for about 80 people.  Their families are invited to support groups, and nursing and med students rotate through the center regularly.

Kathy credits a “second” career, organizing Princess House parties, for teaching her management skills such as goal-setting, motivation and delegation.  “But faith gets me through,” she said, as it did for her mother when the man of the house died, leaving her with four children.  Kathy, at 10, was the oldest…and the one who still believes that “a stoplight is actually a go-light.”

Written by: Jo Dawson, Volunteer Writer