Native daughter Suzie Smith has deep roots in Northern California. “My great-great-grandparents came west in wagon trains. They established a 30,000-acre cattle ranch that three generations have grown up on. I was raised on that ranch. From the age of four I rode, worked cattle, and always thought I wanted to be a vet. Then my friend’s father, a brain surgeon, took me to watch surgery and I fell in love with it. I was a nurse at 22 and it’s all I’ve ever done."
“I got recruited into flight nursing. I love it, and I’d be bored if I did anything else. It’s exciting to me to share the riches of this life. So many people try to find satisfaction in partners or material things. With this work, I get so much more than I give. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true,” explains Suzie as she relaxes after a long night of air ambulance work.
Suzie’s passion for caring extends far beyond Northern California. No matter where in the world help is needed, Suzie is willing to go. On one occasion, she traveled to the ravaged coast of Sri Lanka to help refugees after a devastating tsunami.
“In third world countries, like Nicaragua, I’m so amazed every time I go at how little they have. I’ve been to some of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, like Haiti, where there is 90% unemployment. Children have no clothing, they live on mangoes. Yet they are happy and have the most cheerful faces of any I’ve seen in my life. I can’t explain it. You should see them laughing. We come to the villages in our canoes and they rush up to us. They beg us to visit,” Suzie explains of her compassionate adventures.
Once there, surgeons and nurses might perform 120 surgeries or more in four and one-half days. “There are all sorts of cases we handle--from cleft lips and palates to hernias and tumors. We even do skin grafting for severely burned children. We also deliver food to those who need it most. It’s just so nice to go and make a difference in their lives. I’ll never forget the smile of a young liver cancer patient. We put him on a hospice program and he had a fun time for the final days of his life, without pain,” says Suzie.
“I am in awe of the amazingly high standards for patient care, clinical expertise and ethics at REACH. I not only love what I do, I am proud to do it.” When asked what she does in her spare time, Suzie answers in all seriousness, “We do soup kitchens on Sundays.”
