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Marine Vet Finds Nursing Has Same Ideal - Service

Some people may not see an automatic parallel between the Marine Corps and nursing, but Anthony Brown does. The 39-year-old father of two, a former Marine now head nurse of the cardiopulmonary transplant unit at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, cites teamwork, leadership and taking care of the common good as similarities between the two fields.

Anthony, a Gulf War veteran, served eight and a half years in the Marines before deciding to use his money from the GI bill to pursue a career in nursing. Brown got a glimpse of what nursing was all about when his son, Tristan, was born 11 years ago.

“I saw how much nurses helped people, and I liked that,” Brown says.

He got his prerequisites at what is now Southwest Tennessee Community College and interned in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Medical Center for a year before receiving his nursing degree from The University of Memphis in 2000. Brown went to work in the cardiopulmonary transplant unit at Baptist Memphis, where he became head nurse in 2004.

According to Anthony, there is a sense of family on the transplant unit, and he describes many of the transplant patients as inspirational, including former Memphis Regional Chamber President Marc Jordan, who received a heart transplant in 2000, and Lizzie Roberts, a 17-year-old patient who recently passed away before receiving a heart transplant.

“It’s inspirational to work with patients who don’t let their sickness hold them down,” he says.

Anthony has had the opportunity to work with several teenage boys who were patients on the transplant unit and has enjoyed “being a big brother and advising them on how they need to be handling their lives.”

Brown honors the calling to serve others. His career has run the gamut from the battlefield to the bedside, but he will always put others first.

Nurses Week was May 6 – 12 and Baptist had a variety of activities to show nurses how much they are appreciated, including providing lunch, snacks and tokens of appreciation, plus a Nurses Excellence luncheon, to recognize nurses who excel in practice, leadership and education.

(c) YellowBrix 2008

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