By Vicki Jenkins, staff writer
Kate, a dedicated nurse at Saint Ann’s Skilled Nursing and Therapy in Oklahoma City, has been a nurse for 14 years and has worked at Saint Ann’s for two and a half years. Her career began in a skilled nursing facility, but the foundation for her calling was laid much earlier.
Growing up, Kate considered several professions. She thought about becoming a social worker, a teacher or a nurse. Although the careers were different, they had one important thing in common. “I wanted to be able to help people,” she said.
A deeply personal experience eventually helped point her toward health care. Kate was a teenager when her father became seriously ill and spent his final two weeks in the hospital. During that time, one nurse made a lasting impression by caring not only for her father’s medical needs, but also for the emotional needs of the entire family—offering guidance, answering questions and helping them understand what was happening. “She not only took care of him, but she took care of us,” Kate recalled.
It was the kind of night a teenager never forgets. Kate Camp stood beside her father’s hospital bed during his final two weeks of life, watching machines hum and nurses move quietly through the room. Most of the care was clinical and routine, but one nurse stood out for the way she cared for both patient and family, pausing to listen and acknowledge their presence during a painful time. “She not only took care of him, but she took care of us,” Kate recalled.
That experience stayed with her long after she left the hospital. It reshaped how she understood care itself, as presence, compassion and connection in the middle of heartbreak. “I don’t necessarily need to impact lives,” Kate said. “I want to touch lives.”
That nurse’s compassion showed Kate that nursing could extend far beyond medications, treatments and routine bedside care. “She’s the reason I got into medical care,” Kate said.
Another experience reinforced her decision, but in a very different way. Kate worked as a certified nursing assistant for about six months. During that time, she encountered a nurse who believed some aspects of patient care were beneath her because of her title. Kate never forgot that attitude. “Between the two of them, the good and the bad, that’s why I became a nurse,” she said.
Those contrasting examples helped shape the kind of nurse Kate wanted to become, one who never loses sight of the person behind the medical needs.
Before nursing, Kate had already experienced a life of service and change. The daughter of an Air Force family, she moved frequently while growing up. She later served eight years in the U.S. Navy. Her duty stations included San Diego and Italy, and her final assignment brought her to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
Eventually, Oklahoma became home. Kate returned to the state 13 years ago to be near family and later pursued her nursing education at Vernon College in Vernon, Texas.
Today, her work at Saint Ann’s gives her the opportunity to form meaningful relationships with the residents she serves. Kate is the charge nurse on two halls, caring for residents whose needs can vary greatly from day to day.
For Kate, the work becomes especially meaningful when a resident is nearing the end of life. One of the rooms in her area is designed to provide additional privacy and space, allowing family members to remain close during those final days.
Kate recognizes the privilege and responsibility that comes with caring for someone at that stage of life. She may be one of the last nurses to care for the resident, but she is also caring for the people gathered around the bedside.
That perspective echoes the lesson she learned as a teenager watching a compassionate nurse care for her own family.
Fourteen years into her nursing career, Kate understands that families may not remember every detail of a loved one’s care, but they often remember how a nurse made them feel. A reassuring word, an answered question or a small act of kindness can remain long after a nursing facility stay has ended. For Kate, those moments are not extras. They are part of nursing.
Her career has taken her from military service to nursing and from Texas to Oklahoma, but the purpose behind her work has remained remarkably simple: help people, care for them with dignity and be present when they need someone most.
Caring is rooted in experiences from her own life and carried into every room she enters. Kate does not measure nursing by recognition or by whether she makes a grand impact. She measures it in relationships, compassion and the opportunity to make a difficult day a little easier. She simply wants to touch lives.
