Employee Celebrates 50 Years at Cushing Hospital

At 5 o’clock in the morning, Phyllis Ross, registered American Medical Technologist (AMT), 68, arrives at Hillcrest Hospital Cushing and starts her day in search of answers. “It is my job to get the chemistry analyzer up,” she says. “I do the maintenance and run all the controls to get everything ready to go for the day.” Working quietly behind the scenes in the laboratory, Phyllis is highly skilled at conducting tests that will help physicians accurately diagnosis their patients’ conditions to determine the best course of treatment. It is a career that is critical to providing health care to patients and one that has afforded Phyllis a life she couldn’t have imagined when she graduated from Cushing High School.

“I like everything laid out,” she says. “Chemistry either is or it’s not.” Phyllis’ love of chemistry started with a gift she received at the age of 10 - her first chemistry set. “I was destined to be a lab person.”

However, it was a career Phyllis did not initially pursue when she graduated. “My mom got me the job,” she admits. “I graduated from high school in 1965. I was so shy going around and getting interviews and trying to find a job. My mom worked here for years in the business office and then she was a nurse’s aide.”

In 1966 Phyllis started working at what was then called Cushing Masonic Hospital as a lab aide. “I was 18,” she recalls. “I started out washing urine bottles, washing all the slides and doing all the finger sticks. I really liked it.”

Very soon into her career, Phyllis met someone who recognized her love for the field and desire to learn more. “Bud Mott, Director of the Lab, taught me how to do CBCs (complete blood counts) – back then it was automated,” she shares. “You had to do everything by counting. Then he let me go to school and encouraged me to become registered as a medical technologist.”

Continuously learning, Phyllis worked, studied and passed her tests to become a registered American Medical Technologist (AMT). “Bud was a mentor,” she adds. “He always said, ‘The sign of being a good teacher was if your student became better than you.’ He really let me be what I could be. I do appreciate that. I was able to support my family. I never dreamed I would be able to.”

The job that her mother encouraged her to consider out of high school became a 50-year career at the hospital that has seen not only changes in the lab field, but signage outside the hospital – Cushing Masonic Hospital, Cushing Municipal Hospital, Cushing Regional Hospital and today, Hillcrest Hospital Cushing. “I’ve been in three labs here,” she says. “We’ve had a lot of changes in 50 years. I’ve had a place to grow and learn, and I really like the lab field. You can learn something new every day if you want to and there are places to go. The field is really open right now.”

February 1, 2016, Phyllis will be recognized by staff celebrating her 50 years of service with the hospital. Tucked away back in the lab for the entirety of her career, she is humbled by finding herself in the spotlight. “I don’t even know if everyone knows my name,” she adds. “It is so nice, though. I can’t even imagine that they would do that for me. I do appreciate that so much.”

After the celebration, Phyllis says she will get back to work, returning every day before dawn to do the job she feels she was destined to do, looking for answers to help patients, with no immediate plans of retiring. “As long as I can do a good job, I’d like to stay on,” she says. “I don’t have any complaints. This place has always been very good to me.”