Woman provides care for more than 50 years

View larger image Sue Kline has been a nurse at Shenandoah Memorial Hospital for more than 50 years. Rich Cooley/Daily

By Sally Voth -- svoth@nvdaily.com

WOODSTOCK -- For nearly as long as Shenandoah Memorial Hospital has been around, nurse Sue Kline has been roaming its halls.

The 80-year-old registered nurse marked 50 years straight at the hospital last year. She first started working at the hospital in 1954, three years after it opened and two years after she got her nursing diploma from the University of Virginia.

Kline was a private duty nurse for a short time, before taking a job as a night duty nurse at SMH. There she remained, until she and her family moved to Mississippi for two years in 1959.

By 1961, Kline was back at the hospital, and she hasn't left since.

"It was just something I always wanted to do," said Kline, who now works full-time at the Shenandoah Surgery Center.

The center opened nearly five years ago, replacing the ambulatory surgical unit, which Kline helped start.

"My aunt told me she would give me the money to be either a secretary or a nurse," she said. "I can't sit still long enough to be secretary."

As a night-shift nurse for years, Kline said her three daughters were helpful growing up.
"They were just really good," she said. "They went to bed early, took naps."

Kline found time to be a Girl Scout leader and is a lifetime member of the Scouts.

A Strasburg native, Kline took a high school job at the Peoples Drug Store in town.
Besides working a full-time schedule, she does on-call work, too.

"I have to be doing something I enjoy," Kline said.

She has no plans to retire, saying she'll stop working "when I get tired of it." Kline insists she doesn't get sore or worn out on the job.

"I just enjoy doing what I do," the great-grandmother of 10 said. "There's good days, bad days. That's with everything."

Early in her career, Kline joined the Air Force for a year and worked at the Air National Guard base near Martinsburg, W.Va., in the late 1960s. She went to flight school and did medical transportation work.

"You could sign up to take different trips," Kline said.

The job took her to Newfoundland in Canada and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"I liked that," Kline said. "I liked to fly."

Technology has changed nursing in some ways, but not its fundamentals.

"Electronics can't replace human hands," Kline said.

She's also noticed that doctors rely more on nurses for their medical expertise now than in the past.

Her favorite part of the job?

"The contact with people," Kline said. "It's so nice to have people say, 'Oh, it's so nice to see you're still here.' I like seeing different patients. You get to see different people, different diseases. I just like people."

And, they like her, according to anesthesiologist Dr. Jonathan O'Neal.

"Sue is pretty remarkable," he said. "I've known her for the past 10 years, worked closely with her. She's so implanted in the community, I actually have people requesting her. She gets good reviews. People love to deal with her."

Kline also has good insight into patients' medical histories, having helped them before, O'Neal said.

"We're pretty proud of her," he said.