MOSES LAKE — Katherine Christian said she had career plans, and they didn’t include nursing.

“I didn’t fall in love with nursing initially. I thought I was going to be a physical therapist,” she said. Making a career in nursing “never occurred to me – literally, never occurred to me.” But it was suggested as a possible option at the community college she was attending, so she decided to give it a try, she said. She did, “and I fell in love with it.”

It turned out Katherine Christian and nursing were made for each other. “I fell in love with it at the very base, (as a) nursing assistant.” Nursing assistants help patients with their needs – sometimes their most basic needs – help nurses apply dressings and bandages, clean rooms and patient areas. They’re with the patients every day. But it can be tough work. “That is actually a place that makes a lot of people run from nursing.”

But that job was a revelation for Christian. “I love taking care of people. I love engaging with them, helping them get better, I love teaching them. I think I’ve always been a teacher and probably I’ve always been a nurse at some level.”

Christian has been a nurse for 40 years. “It’s an amazing profession, because there are so many facets of it.” In her career she’s worked the medical-surgical floor, in the intensive care unit, at a home health care agency, in a private practice, in a supervisory role as an assistant charge nurse. Currently she is director of health education for the nursing program at Big Bend Community College.

“It’s a career (where) you get to reinvent yourself frequently. But it’s still all nursing.”

She worked part time when her children were young, and her family lived at various places around the country while her husband Mike pursued his training and career as a physician. The family moved to Moses Lake in 1991.

Along the way she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and she’s an instructor in the BBCC program as well as an administrator. “I love teaching. I love watching students grow, I enjoy using my skills.” She wanted to pass on her knowledge, she said. “I prefer to grow more nurses.”

The nursing profession is growing in part because demand for nurses is growing, Christian said. That’s on top of an existing demand for nurses, as veterans in the profession retire.

“We create a basic entry nurse. You specialize later.” Christian said the goal of the nursing program is to prepare students for almost any situation. “I see my job as preparing for whatever is going to come down the road, whether it be a small hospital or a big city hospital. We try to get them ready for a broad variety of opportunities.”

Christian recently was appointed to the Samaritan Healthcare board of commissioners, her second time on the board. “I think I come with a very unique perspective.” She’s a medical professional who has experience in a number of states, in large and small hospitals, in private medical practice and as an instructor. That’s experience the other commissioners may not have, she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].