By ANGYE MORRISON

amorrison@discoveringbulloch.com

Shirley Ryce moved with her parents to Statesboro from Sylvania when she was just 6 years old. She had no idea at that tender age that her life’s work would allow her to touch so many lives. 

But it has.

Ryce retired from working in the newborn nursery at East Georgia Regional Medical Center on Dec. 19. She had worked at the hospital since it opened in 2000, and prior to that, she worked at Bulloch Memorial. 

After graduating from Statesboro High School in 1971, Ryce took her first job as a nurse’s aide at Bulloch Memorial, where she worked for a year. The hospital had a scholarship program, which Ryce took advantage of, allowing her to ear her LPN, and she continued to work there from 1973 to 1996.

At that time, Ryce went to nursing school and earned her nursing degree, becoming an RN in 1996. She attended Armstrong State College, and went back and forth between working a quarter and attending school a quarter. 

Ryce worked for a while as a float nurse, going anywhere in the hospital that she was needed, from the ER to med/surg. 

“I went wherever I needed to work,” she said, adding that she had worked a couple of times in pediatrics, and one of the doctors there saw how good she was with the kids, and told her that she “needed to be a nursery nurse.”

“I never wanted to do pediatric or newborn nursing,” she said. But after one of the nurses there left in 1977, she made the move, and remained there until her retirement. 

During her tenure in the nursery at both facilities, Ryce says her duties included feeding and bathing the babies, changing diapers, taking phone calls from and making rounds with the doctors, starting IVs and giving medications. She also helped with orientation for new nurses that came in. 

Ryce says her greatest struggle came while an LPN, when she trained the RNs that came into her department. She said it was more of a challenge to not be intimidated by them, teaching them what they needed to do.

“They were above me so they were more educated and I was like, how am I going to teach somebody who knows more than I know? But it worked out fine. I taught them, they taught me. Only difference was that they were getting the pay and I wasn’t,” she said. 

Now that Ryce is retired, she says she wants to travel. She plans to travel to see her grandchildren in North Dakota and California, and says she’d love to also travel to Africa and to Hawaii. She has five grandkids ranging in age from 27 to 10 years old. 

But for the first three to six months, Ryce has other plans.

“I’m not going to do anything but get to know Shirley, just enjoy Shirley,” she said.

Ryce also wants to spend as much time as she can with her mother, who is 87.

On her last day at work, Ryce’s coworkers surprised her with some gifts and ordered lunch in for her, and treated her extra special. 

“They said, don’t go Miss Shirley,” she said, adding that they reminded her how much she had taught them. “It touched me so much, because I didn’t think they were going to do anything on that particular day.”

While working in the nursery for 43 years, Ryce says she loved meeting new people, and helping families get a good start with their new babies. 

“Some of them were nervous or afraid, so to know that I could help them to feel good about going home with their baby, made me feel good,” she said. 

Of all the babies she cared for, one case stands out in particular for Ryce. It was the first set of triplets born at Bulloch Memorial. 

“I don’t even remember how long it’s been, but I’m thinking that it’s been 30 or 40 years. We didn’t know the lady was having triplets. The first one came out, and then the doctor was like, ‘There’s another one, there’s another one!’ And then a third one came out. We took care of those triplets at Bulloch Memorial. I will never forget. Their names were Rick, Roy and Roger,” she said, laughing.

Sometime afterward, one of the triplets, she couldn’t recall which one, was back at the hospital becoming a father himself. And she was able to care for his child, just as she had done for him. This happened a lot throughout her career; Ryce has cared for the grandchildren of the babies she once held in the nursery. 

“That’s really exciting. But what’s really exciting is when I see the parents or grandparents at the mall. They recognize me,” she said, adding that she doesn’t always recognize them, but she still loves it when they remember her.  Some of “her babies” have come by with their own children over the years to introduce her to their children. 

“That really touches my heart,” she says. “Yes it does.”

Ryce has been asked about volunteering, but she shakes her head and gives a firm “No.” She does say she might consider going back to work as a PRN, which is a pro re neta nurse, or “as needed.”

“I’ll never say never because I love the job,” she said. “We’ll see how being a retiree treats me.”