Sherry Engle of Pataskala treasures the generous cache of memories she stored up during her nursing years – a career’s worth of interactions that collectively illustrate the human touch she knows is vital to patients’ well-being.
In one instance, she recalls offering to stay after her shift to bathe a knee replacement surgery patient so she could be clean for her trip home. It seemed like a simple gesture at the time, but Engle later received a letter from the woman who said, “You’ll never know what that meant to me.”
Engle knows ever-advancing medical technology and scientific discovery are useful tools, but it’s human-to-human interactions such as those that fueled her passion for nursing – a career she had dreamed of since childhood.
“You make a difference in patients’ lives,” she said. “You are contributing to their wellness. Sometimes the time we spend with our patients is more healing than the medicine that they’re getting.”
Engle attended high school in Columbus before marrying and starting a family. When her marriage unexpectedly ended, she found herself a single mom tasked with raising her young children. Wondering how best to support them, she explored a brief stint in real estate before returning to the career that had always held her heart: nursing.
Engle obtained her LPN in 1984, graduating at the top of her class, and began working at Mount Carmel Health System, where she remained until her retirement in 2012.
After spending some time in the field and looking to expand her skillset, Engle chose to attend Central Ohio Technical College to obtain her associate's degree to become a registered nurse, which she accomplished in 1994. It was a decision that reinforced her field knowledge and equipped her with skills she would later pass down to her students as a clinical instructor.
“COTC reinforced and added to my education, and I felt comfortable taking care of anything," she said. "That’s what I wanted out of my students that I helped. I want them to feel comfortable and be able to step into that role; understand how to take care of a trach and how to unplug a feeding tube and do the things that they’re going to be running into in their field.”
With COTC’s small class sizes and emphasis on hands-on learning, Engle found her experience fulfilling in every way. After graduating, she spent more than a decade pouring the knowledge she acquired at COTC into future nurses.
In reflecting on her nursing career, Engle feels satisfaction knowing that she was able to bring hope to so many patients.
“My patients were number one, and I would do anything to make sure their outcome was good – and they knew it,” she said.
