Joyce Lucas' 37-year LPN nursing career celebrated by Marshall Browning staff

A life well-lived and certainly a respected professional career were celebrated Friday at Marshall Browning Hospital as Joyce Lucas, LPN, retired from a 37-year career at the hospital.

A two-hour reception was held in the cafeteria hosted by administrator Edwin Gast and staff members.

She hopes to return in December as a PRN as well as work part time for the Pinckneyville Correctional Center.

Joyce's healthcare career at Marshall Browning Hospital in May 1977 and before that she worked as a nurse for the Fair Acres Nursing Home for 4 1/2 years. "I was a nurse's aide until I received my LPN from Rend Lake College," she said. She credits that job with teaching her a great deal about the importance of really caring for your patients. She enjoyed her work there but came to Marshall Browning Hospital "for 50 cents more an hour" and stayed.

There were a lot of mentors along the way, but she points to Barb Hunter, Ruby Crain and Joyce's daughter Sherry Wertz as being major influences in her work.

She has four children--Lonnie Mifflin, Sherry Wertz, Michelle Morrison and Darold Lucas, and she thanks them for their love and support during her career.

"There have been a lot of good changes," she said. She said you "have to bounce with the changes." She adds, "The patients are the most important. You do everything you can for them. We have a lot of good staff and you can't operate a hospital without everyone helping."

She is investing her pension and says the income from it will pay for her new car.

There is a 90-day pension rule that applies to her work, but she looks forward to her return as a part-time nurse in December.