Close to midnight on Oct. 22, Registered Nurse Joy Gibson walked out of Riverside Health System Connected Care Center, bringing the longest chapter of her life to a close.
Gibson, 85, retired from what she calls “the greatest place in the world to work,” after logging her final shift at the one-stop hospital triage center, which facilitates consultations, arranges transfers and handles logistical details for patients at all of Riverside’s facilities. The 24-hour call center also mans the Riverside Nurse Triage line.
Gibson was a school nurse at Hampton High, worked many years in a psych unit and at a nursing home. Riverside has been a constant in her life for the last 40 years, and she gets emotional talking about leaving it behind.
“I have a Riverside family; they’re my second family,” she says. “I’ve made lifelong friends here.”
As much as Gibson enjoyed hands-on patient care, she opted for a different role as part of Riverside’s newly established call center in the ’80s.
Back then, Gibson’s main responsibility was monitoring the “Ask a Nurse” hotline, where no question is out of bounds.
“My contractions are two minutes apart. What should I do?
“I think I’m having a heart attack. Help!”
“I’m bleeding. Should I go to the ER?”
“We don’t answer off the cuff,” Gibson says. “We have protocols for everything we do, but you never know what’s coming. It’s like an emergency room.”
At 5 years old, Gibson knew nursing was her calling. She grew up in tiny New Holland, Ohio, and recalls watching her grandmother struggle with a brain tumor. “We had her bed in the living room and I watched her suffer with the pain,” Gibson says. “I made up my mind then that when I grew up, I was going to help people get better. I never changed after all these years.”
Gibson came to Hampton Roads when she and her husband, Bob, decided they wanted to move to a place with a more moderate climate. He was a milkman, and she was driving 20 miles each way to the VA Hospital in Chillicothe, Ohio, often navigating snowy, icy roads during the colder months. After visiting friends on the Peninsula, they decided it would become their new home.
“We packed up and moved three weeks later,” Gibson says.
Her nursing career is filled with a storybook of rewards. At Hampton High, she was an ear with an open door for students, many dealing with family and emotional problems. She holds a special memory for the day a man in the building for a capping ceremony walked into the clinic, feeling unwell. He collapsed.
“I did CPR and saved his life,” she says. “Two months later, he walked into my clinic and I didn’t know who he was.”
“Is she the one?” he asked his wife.
“He thanked me and told me his chest hurt from all those compressions!” Gibson says.
Linda Kyriazis, registered nurse with Riverside, has worked alongside Gibson since 1989. “She’s always been the calm in the storm,” Kyriazis said. “I could be crying and she’d calm me down. She’s a beautiful person, the mother of the unit. When I needed strength, I’d go stand near her.”
Gibson considered retiring 20 years ago but cut back to part time instead. Now she looks forward to being able to devote more time to her two sons, five grandchildren and 4½ great grandchildren (one on the way). Retiring means more time for cross stitching and playing piano and is welcome news for her Dachshund, Bleu, who hates to see her leave for work.
There’s a part of her that will always be at Riverside, though.
“Every boss I’ve had here has been great,” she says. “I’ve been here so long. When we started the transfer center, we had one computer and no information on what to do. I helped to get things started. It’s like having a baby. You learn as it grows. I’m really a part of everything, and I’ve loved all of it.”
