A Salute to Our Retirees

Good morning!

Every year right around now, for as long as I can remember, we host a ceremony and reception honoring our retirees, including those who have at least 25 years of service to the Medical Center.  This has become one of my favorite events because, year after year, these are the people who have truly built UMMC into what it is today.  It’s an honor and a privilege to recognize their service.  This year, we recognize approximately 60 faculty and staff who are retiring with at least 25 years of service to UMMC, and 158 retirees overall.  Congratulations to all of you.

Due to the pandemic and the restrictions we have to observe to keep people safe, we are not able to host a ceremony this year for our retirees, their families and colleagues who wish them well.  I’m sad about that.  But in lieu of a ceremony, I thought it would be fun and meaningful to pose a few questions to some of our longer-serving retirees.  I wanted to ask each of them:

What was your most memorable experience at UMMC?

What will you miss most?

What advice do you have for new employees?

Here are the responses of six of our retirees.  Note:  As is customary for the official program we create for the retirement event, we use their badge photos, some of which haven’t changed in many years!

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Vanessa Lewis, Nursing House Supervisor, University Hospital, 33 years and 3 months

A graduate of the School of Nursing at UMMC, Vanessa Lewis began her career here as a student nurse aid.  She went on to work as a nurse on the medical surgical floor and, later, in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.  She was then a nurse manager on an orthopaedic trauma and surgery unit until she was promoted to nursing supervisor in 1994. She is originally from Moorhead.

What was your most memorable moment or experience here?  “I just enjoy UMMC.  I always admired Bebe Richardson (former chief nursing officer).  She was really my inspiration.  I enjoyed the challenges and the changes – it’s forever changing.”

What will you miss most?  “I don’t know that I’ll miss anything because I knew it was time for me to go.  I’ve been working since I was 10 years old.”

Any advice for UMMC employees as a whole or in nursing?  “I’d tell the employees, if you’re not leaving Mississippi, don’t leave UMMC.  I love UMMC.  I love the opportunities and the freedoms here.“

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Dr. Charu Subramony, Professor of Pathology, 40 years and 9 months

Dr. Charu Subramony completed medical school in India and then entered an anatomic pathology-clinical pathology residency at the Cleveland Clinic.  She joined UMMC as an AP-CP resident in 1979 and became an instructor in the department in 1980, rising through the ranks to become a full professor in 2006.  She has taught GI and liver pathology to residents, medical and dental students, and she directed the pathology residency program from 1991-97.  She has directed UMMC’s autopsy service since 1997 and UMMC’s liver pathology service since 2013.  She is co-author of more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and case studies, recently in the areas of gastroparesis, colitis and liver cirrhosis.  In retirement, she wants to spend more time cooking.  She enjoys cooking all kinds of food, but wants to perfect her Italian/Mediterranean food, making pasta from scratch, and her Southern cooking, particularly gumbo.

What were your most memorable experiences at UMMC?  The time spent with and the learning she has done alongside her colleagues, she said.  They learn from each other not only about pathology, but courage, hard work and how to be a good human being.  She also said working as a pathologist at UMMC has been memorable because Mississippi has some of the “weirdest, strangest” pathology cases – cases that some pathologists would only read about in textbooks -- and you can learn so much from that kind of exposure.  

What will you miss most?  She will miss her colleagues the most, but will also miss her work, since it doesn’t really feel like work to her.  Pathology is about solving riddles and puzzles, and she has enjoyed solving these cases over the years. It’s been a “really good ride.”

What advice would you give to new employees or pathologists?  That it is important to be “lifelong learners.”  After more than 40 years in the field, she still sees new kinds of cases and learns from them.

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Johnny Gilmore, Senior Human Resources Service Partner, Employee Relations, 39 years and 3 months

Johnny Gilmore is a graduate of Abilene Christian College (now University), Abilene, Texas, and the Mississippi College School of Law.  Before joining UMMC he was a paralegal handling unemployment administrative cases.

What were your most memorable experiences at UMMC?  “Meeting such renowned faculty members and leaders as Dr. Arthur Guyton, Dr. James Hardy, Dr. Robert Currier, Dr. Blair Batson, Dr. Norman Nelson, Dr. Winfred Wiser, Dr. Wallace Conerly, Dr. Edgar Draper – ‘the Hall of Fame.’

“And watching the Medical Center evolve, from 3,000 employees when I started to about 10,000 now.”

What will you miss the most?  “Just being part of the mission of the Medical Center.  I grew up in Mississippi, so it’s home for me.  I miss the people.  With the pandemic, I rode off quietly into the sunset, but I will always be part of the family there.”

What advice do you have for new employees?  “Someone asked me what the key to my longevity there was. It’s the courage to do right.  Just do your job honorably.  You have to be true to your word, and treat people right.”

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Susan Shands Jones, Associate General Counsel and Assistant Professor, 30 years and 7 months

Not many UMMC employees can say they’ve worked for four vice chancellors, but Susan Shands Jones can.  The Jackson native began her tenure at the Medical Center in 1997 after serving as an assistant secretary of state for corporations and business services, and then as a special assistant attorney general for the secretary of state’s office.

Shands has lent her legal expertise to UMMC in a number of areas, beginning in accounting, doing contracts and shepherding legal work on bond issues for construction projects that included the student union, an addition to Children’s Hospital, Wiser Hospital, University Hospital and the Children’s of Mississippi expansion.

“It’s always been interesting,” said Jones, a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt School of Law.  “I’ve worked with research issues and real estate.  Part of my job has been to make sure that communication is good and that projects are tracking on time.”

Jones also served as an assistant professor in UMMC’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities.  In retirement, she’s going to take a class on author Eudora Welty at Millsaps College, continue her volunteer work at the Mississippi Museum of Art and get back on track with her passion for photography.

What are your favorite memories?  Among those she listed the groundbreaking for the Children’s of Mississippi expansion.  “I loved the confetti, the patients and Friends of Children’s of Mississippi all being there,” she said.  “We’d been talking about this for over 10 years.  Now, it’s almost done.”

Her advice to friends and co-workers at the U?  “Hang in there, be flexible and be a good listener.”

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Stephanie Kennedy, Materials Management Supervisor in the Main OR, 39 years and 4 months

Stephanie Kennedy began her UMMC career on Jan. 5, 1981 as a nursing assistant.  She completed a six-week class provided by the hospital to become an acute care technician. ACTs “did everything but give out medicine,” which proved to be “too much not to have a license,” so when the ACTs were phased out about 15 years ago, she was reassigned to materials management, and has been a supervisor for the last few years.

She covered 4 East and 3 South in the old University Hospital, ordering supplies for the floors and making sure the correct supplies came in and were stored properly, among other tasks. She worked directly for the head nurse of those two floors before being transferred to supply chain/materials management.

What is your most memorable experience at UMMC?  When she was serving as a stock person for 4 South and 4 West, her nurse manager would always tell her colleagues, “I don’t have to worry about this or I don’t have to worry about that – Stephanie will take care of it.”  The head nurse of Labor and Delivery heard this and said, “We need someone like that in our department.”  Sure enough, the nurse manager had been bragging about Stephanie so much that she was reassigned to Labor and Delivery!  “She (the nurse manager) was really furious they took me away from her,” Kennedy said. 

What will you miss the most?  She said the people she works with, especially the ladies that she meets in the parking lot and walks across the street to work with each morning.  “We give each other a hug,” she said.  “I’m going to miss that.” 

What advice do you have fornewcomers to UMMC?  “Do your best at what you do.  When you come in, do what they ask you to do, do your best at what you do and you should be fine.”

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Bruce Beal, Recreational Therapist, Children’s of Mississippi, 41 years and 4 months

Recreational therapy delivered by Bruce Beal has benefited generations of Mississippi children. Starting as a recreational therapist with what was then the Children’s Rehabilitation Center in 1979, Beal continued helping children heal for more than 41 years.

When the state Children’s Rehabilitation Center became part of the Medical Center in 1989, the University of Southern Mississippi graduate became a member of the UMMC team.  He moved to the hospital’s main campus in the mid-1990s, just in time to begin working as a child life specialist in the state’s only children’s hospital when it opened in 1997.

Among the Children’s of Mississippi child life team members, he was the only recreational therapist and the only male.

What was your most memorable experience?  “The most memorable part of being a UMMC employee for me was working with children with all kinds of illnesses and injuries,” Beal said.  “Seeing them get better and get to go home was wonderful.  I have run into patients of ours around town, and they’ve grown up and have families but still remembered us at the children’s hospital.”

What advice do you have for new employees?  Patience is the best virtue a new UMMC employee could have at the start of his or her career, Beal said.  “Take time to get to know the campus and your job.  Take things a day at a time.” 

What will you miss the most?  Seeing patients’ smiling faces each day will be missed, Beal said, “but I’m enjoying retirement.  I’ve been working on putting a dent in my wife’s to-do list!”

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I’m proud of all our retirees and what they have meant to UMMC. Again, congratulations and best-wishes for a well-earned retirement!  You represent a vast reservoir of expertise and institutional memory that we will sorely miss. Year after year, you have been a big part of what it means to be #UMMCStrong.