Long-term employees play an invaluable role in the life of UT Southwestern Medical Center. Their faithful, dedicated service has helped the institution become what it is today. In this video, we showcase several of these employees, who are celebrating milestone service anniversaries this year. To learn more about your colleagues and their UT Southwestern lives, view the video. For even more spotlights on our 2019 service honorees, be sure to visit their stories on Center Times Plus.

---

Transcript

- Oh, gosh.

- [Gwendolyn] It's been a wonderful ride for forty-five years. Mother hen. Since I'm the oldest in the group. Mother hen. I like interacting with people, and, it's a lot of telephone work. But you learn to meet people over the phone, learn their voices. You may never meet them, in person, but you have a nice conversation with them on the phone. And I like, enjoy doing that. Now when I get home, I don't wanna see a phone. When I grew up here in 1961, St. Paul was the only little place on the hill. But now, you come down Harry Hines, and it's the medical center district, and then coming down past Inwood to UT Southwest, I mean, it is just booming.

- [Jeanne] You have to do what you like.

- [Steve] And I feel that I owe a debt of gratitude to my employer for all that.

- [Jeanne] We met in high school. I was friends with his sister. And

- [Steve] I stole her from my sister

- [Jeanne] She'll say that, yes. But, we didn't really start going out until after high school.

- [Steve] Yeah, we started going out in groups.

- Yeah

- Ballroom dancing, if you can believe it.

- Mmhmm

- [Jeanne] Loved to do ballroom dancing.

- [Steve] And then we sort of gravitated to each other.

- [Jeanne] It's been nice. We've worked together, we collaborated back when we were at St. Paul's.

- [Steve] We share our experiences with each other all the time. So, I have, I believe, a better understanding of the nursing point of view than probably anybody else in the laboratory.

- [Jeanne] I like being able to talk with the patients, and I love teaching. And I really like making a difference in somebody's life.

- [Steve] What I enjoy is the fact that we're always learning new things. I like to keep up with the science as best I can, and get a little excited when we come up with new discoveries or new treatments.

- [Ulysses] I pride myself on address employee needs, and a positive work environment. I used to be a fireman. I finished 30 in the academy out of 150. UT Southwestern is a great place to work. It really is. It's a great place to work. I wanna quote Maya Angelo. She said, "You can meet someone and forget their name. You can go somewhere and forget how to get back there. Or you can see a place and forget the name of it. But you will never, ever forget how someone made you feel." And UT Southwestern is a nurturing environment.

- [Ruth] I never expected to stay at UT Southwestern so long. But, it's been a wonderful time. I think the strongest one was when I was working for the late Al Gilman, who was Dean at the time. And I had the opportunity to actually sit at a table with Dr. Gilman and the other Nobel Laureates. And for me, that was really a highlight. Certainly, I never thought in my life that a country girl like myself, would ever have that opportunity. I love the people. I think that's what makes UT Southwestern so unique. We have such variety, here of people with different experiences, and the opportunity to really interact with different cultures, which is really, really nice. And people who are just truly, genuinely caring and want to do a good job.

- [Stephanie] It's just amazing making the connection. They're like, "You were my nurse, and I'm forever grateful." It makes it worth it. I love that everyday, you never know what you're going to get. It's 12 hours of adventure. Every patient is really special, but the quintuplets come to mind. We did tons of planning for that delivery and I remember it like yesterday. Then we got to see her in the NICU, and see her babies grow up. And she keeps up posted on how they're doing. Very recently, my parents, who, had been divorced for over 40 years got married at the chapel here at UT Southwestern and got married on Valentine's Day this year, which was amazing. And they wanted to make it special and they asked me where I wanted. It's been a real pleasure working here. I can't imagine working anywhere else.