Sutton will walk in Columbus when she gets her degree in May, but the road it took her to get to where she is now was a long one. Her love for nursing began back when she was a young girl living in Miami County with her parents. They lived with a doctor who had a practice out of his home.
“If the doorbell would ring, I was there. He taught me how to sterilize syringes, and that was in the day when we used glass syringes. I was exposed to many different situations in life there,” she said.
When her mother retired, the family moved to Northridge. Sutton went to Northridge High School and met her husband. They married, had two kids, and Sutton just worked odd jobs. However, when she was 40, she decided to finally go to nursing school and she enrolled at Sinclair College in 1981.
After graduating in 1985 with an associate degree in applied science, she began working at St. Elizabeth’s until its closure in 2000. She worked in oncology after a conversation with a professor. But she said working with oncology patients is a lot more than just nursing.
“The part I loved about oncology nursing, or any kind of nursing education, is teaching patients how to e their better self and reach wellness. It’s [cancer] one of the biggest challenges of their lives. It’s almost spiritual. They tell you their fears and you’re just there,” she said.
After St. Elizabeth’s closed, she worked in home care from 2001-2005. In 2006, an old friend of hers told her about a nursing job that was open, and she was hired. She worked at Dayton Physicians Radiation Oncology Samaritan North until her retirement in 2012.
But that retirement didn’t last long.
“I got bored. Anybody that knows me will tell you nursing is my life. It’s just something that I loved. It’s like what they say about the mafia; ‘once you’re in, you’re in,’” she said.
Sutton went back to work as a Community Wellness Screener with Premier/Fidelity where she continues to work doing community outreach events. But the education bug kept on biting. She enrolled at Franklin University in Columbus in the online nursing degree program.
“I decided I wanted to go back to get my master’s because I want to be involved in teaching. I wanted it, so that’s what I did,” she said.
Sutton will graduate May 20, and said that she is going to keep her options open. However, passing on her lifelong health care experiences is what she feels is the next stage in life for her, and she wants to teach more than just how to be a nurse.
“I would like to teach new RNs how to use critical thinking and how to teach the patient what they can do to live the best life they can. I want to pass on my knowledge and my 40 years of nursing experience to new nurses,” Sutton said.
The college experience completely online was ideal for Sutton during the pandemic. She also learned new things including nursing theory and management, things nurses were rarely taught back when she first went to school. She did point out one nemesis when it came to schooling.
“The hardest thing was that computer and technology. Back in my day, we charted. We must have written a million words. I called my granddaughter for help,” she said.
Sutton eventually mastered the technological beast and said it just takes practice like anything else. While she doesn’t have plans for a big trip or party for her graduation, she said the one thing she really wants in the future.
“Life has a way of working out how it’s going to be. Life for me has worked out the best way it could. I can’t think of anything else I would have rather have done. I would like to have a great-grandkid, but I don’t know if I’ll live that long,” Sutton said.
While teaching is now her ultimate goal, Sutton recognizes just getting her degree is an amazing achievement. She looks forward to what she will do with that piece of paper, but she just wants it.
“I don’t care if they just put the thing [degree] on my gravestone, as long as I have it,” she said.
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