Barbara (Bobbie) Lyons:
CLASS OF 1979
Essex High SchoolClass of 1979
Tappahannock, VA
University of Maryland - NursingClass of 2009
Baltimore, MD
Old Dominion University - NursingClass of 1999
Norfolk, VA
Rappahannock Community CollegeClass of 1988
Warsaw, VA
Richmond Technical CenterClass of 1986
Richmond, VA
Barbara (Bobbie)'s Story
Life
I am working at Johns Hopkins Hospital as the new manager of the Centralized Bed Management Center. I was nursing Supervisor for the Dept of Surgery for 8 years and in the Adult ED for 2 years. Ten years at The Hop now. I love it! I am in Graduate school at U of MD as an applicant for my MS in Nursing Informatics, aka computers in the hospital/healthcare arena. I am recently married to a wonderful man, Dennis. He is a banker. I travel when I can and where I can, my favorite places being Key West, Naples, Orlando, and Las Vegas. I have a thing for palm trees! I recently had gastric bypass surgery and am 75 pounds lighter. I look and feel great and am smaller than I ever remember being. I still love music and sing with 2 groups, my church choir at Fallston United Methodist Church and with the Johns Hopkins Choral Society.
School
High school was a drag. I would not do any of it again. I choose to think that I became inspired and succeeded in spite of Essex High or perhaps to spite it. Bitter, not really, just sad about it is all.
College
I did things in college one step at a time. I went to LPN school at Richmond Technical Center and gradated. After that I worked for a short while and went back to school at RCC and got my AAS in Nursing and sat for the RN boards. I passed those and worked for about 10 years before I had enough nerve to go back and get my BS in Nursing from ODU. Now, a few years later, I am in school again at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and working on my Master's in Science of Nursing Informatics. I am also getting my Master's Level teaching certificate so that I can teach in the University as well. I thought about it... I went from being a Trojan to a seagull to a lion, and now a terrapin. Now that is a combination! Just for the record, I hate tests. I took the LSAT's did well but they bite as do the GRE's. Eww.
Workplace
I started being a nurse at Tidewater Memorial Hospital (now Riverside Tappahannock Hospital) back in the mid 80s as a LPN. Not long after I finished my RN, I went to work at Richmond Memorial Hospital (now Memorial Regional Medical Center). I found my niche in the ER. Blood, guts, drunks, junkies, stabbings, shootings, beatings, ahhhhhhhhh, Bring em on. I left the ER for a while and got some supervisory experience. I went to work at Warsaw Healthcare Center as a nursing supervisor and then as a unit nurse manager. I moved on to the Tappahannock office of Brooksid...Expand for more
e Home Health as the plan of treatment writer and auditor. After they were sold, I went back to the ER in Richmond to Capitol Medical Center in the Fan. I decided to do the BIG MOVE after my divorce and came to Baltimore. I accepted a RN position in the ER at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They are a level 1 trauma center and the pediatric trauma center for the state of Maryland. Working here has been the pinnicle of my nursing career. I see things on a daily basis that most doctors and nurses only read about. It is fantastic. I was in a short segment of the ABC production "Hopkins 24/7" and was taped for the Discovery Channel for the Life in the ER segments. That was cool.
After being at Hopkins for 2 years, I accepted a promotion to nursing supervisor for the Division of Surgery. If you have surgery at Hopkins, you belong to me. I supervise 9 floors and 4 ICUs for a total of 220 beds. I coordinate that along with the OR, recovery room, ER, and our transplant services. My division does heart, lung, liver, pancreas, and kidney transplants. We also have several brands of artificial hearts in my Cardiac Surgery ICU and step down floors. Those things are amazing. I also have the High Ammenities floor where we take care of states people from here and abroad. I have met a presidential candidate, national athletes, several actresses/actors/vocalists, a queen, numerous princes/princesses/shahs/sheiks, US governmental officials, a retired Secretary of State, and a Supreme Court Justice to not name a few. I work side by side with numerous world renound physicians and surgeons. We write the journals everyone else just reads about. Hopkins is like no other place in the world and is just an amazing place to work and learn.
After I complete my MS in Nursing Informatics, I plan to stay at Hopkins either in the Dept of Surgery as an Informaticist or move to the legal dept and work with informatics Compliance or the IT department as a nurse liasion. I plan to become an Informatics Project manager, so I can also work with Hopkins One, our all encompassing IT department that works with the Hospital and the University as well. I can pick and choose actually. I love my job! I was awarded the 2007 Nursing Research Fellowship as well. I have an office "under the dome" and am working on a great number of research projects. I also have 2 articles out for publication in scholarly journals. Rewrites, deadlines, and edits are now the bane of my existence!
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