For Stacie Ogg Hill '03, serving as an army nurse was the experience of a lifetime. "There is nothing more rewarding than taking care of the men and women who defend our freedom," said Stacie, who was commissioned into the Army right after she graduated from LC's nursing program.
"I felt a strong calling to serve my country, so I joined the military to serve and to help preserve the freedoms our country gives us," she explained.
In 2006, Stacie was deployed to Afghanistan where she spent a year as a lead trauma nurse in the emergency department of a Combat Support Hospital. The hospital, a level one trauma center, was the highest level of health care available in the region, but conditions were far from ideal.
"We worked out of a plywood hut that was a fully functioning hospital, and we worked nearly seven days a week for 365 days treating American military and coalition forces, as well as Afghan civilians," she said. That year, the hospital handled approximately 600 trauma cases and 15,000 emergency and acute illness patients.
"My favorite part of the job was retrieving patients from medivac helicopters, because that's when you really had the face-to-face contact," Stacie said. "Soldiers thought if they could just make it to the hospital, they would be all right, and the look of relief on their faces when they knew they had arrived meant everything to me.
"Losing a patient was the hardest part of the job, but as a nurse I still looked at it as an opportunity to provide good nursing care until the last second - even if it was simply giving emotional or physical comfort," she added.
Stacie's living conditions were difficult, complicated by the ever-present dust. Medical workers were housed in small huts with eight people per hut. The huts were not insulated but did have some heat and air conditioning. The climate fluctuated from frigid winters with a foot of snow on the ground to hot summers where the temperature soared to 110 degrees. "Even so, I had it better than a lot of people did," she said.
Stacie's tour of duty ended in February of 2008, and now she has her "dream job" as a registered nurse in the Labor and Delivery Unit at CJW Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. "I love my new job," she said. "It's wonderful being a nurse. From Lynchburg College to Afghanistan, and now to Richmond, I have learned so much and continue to learn as I serve."