TR PHOTO BY SUSANNA MEYER Ada Bryant, who has devoted 46 years of her life to Marshalltown Hospital, has decided to retire at the end of August. For most of her career, she has worked as a laboratory technician, specializing in blood banking, but more recently, she has been a laboratory manager.
Spending nearly five decades with one organization is no easy feat, but Ada Bryant has accomplished it at Marshalltown Hospital through several ownership and name changes. Now, with 46 years of experience under her belt, she’s decided to step down, but not before looking back at her preparations and her accomplished career.
Bryant grew up in the small town of Northwood, and grew up in Faribault, Minn. After graduating from the College of Career and Technology, she got her first job as a lab technician at Marshalltown Hospital.
Being from Northwood, a town of more than 2,000 people, Marshalltown feels like a city, said Bryant, who still remembers the day she started working at the hospital in 1976. It was Labor Day weekend and the workload was heavy, to say the least.
It was busy, and I remember I had to make a phone call—of course, this was before cell phones—and I’m in a phone booth in a hospital parking lot in the city, it was raining, and I called my mom and said, ‘ Oh, I hate it here, it’s so crazy, I want to find another job in a small town.’ “Well, my mom said, ‘At least you’ve got to stay there, at your first job, for a year,’ and here I am 46 years later, so you know, it’s gotten better.”
Bryant said she spent most of her career working the bench and doing a lot of blood banking for the hospital’s donor program. Calling donors and then taking blood for transfusions was her most important daily routine.
Interestingly, Bryant initially took the job at Marshalltown Hospital because she didn’t have to do a lot of blood banking (it was another lab tech department), but as she started doing more, she realized she really enjoyed it. it is. Bryant eventually took over at the blood bank, where he remained for 41 years.
During her time as a lab technologist, Bryant had the opportunity to see medical science and technology advance, and one of the biggest changes she saw was in the use of donor blood in surgery.
“Nowadays things are much better, surgically, for the use of blood and even in the hospital. You cannot stay in the hospital for long. Back then, even cataract surgery you were in the hospital for days, and now you’re only there for a couple of hours, so it’s changed a lot over the years.
Even the lab tests were very different when Bryant first started. While the experiment used to be a manual task, it is now often performed in large chemical analyses.
While most of her work has been at the lab bench, five years ago, she took on the role of lab supervisor and traded her bench for a desk. The transition was a bit of an adjustment.
“You know, at that point you’ve worked here for 40 years, and you think you know everything, but you come here on the other side of the wall, and you realize how much you don’t know yet,” Bryant said.
She became superintendent at the same time he took over Unity Point, and Bryant said they’ve been great working together over the past five years. In the nearly five decades Bryant has worked at the hospital, its name and management have changed several times, something that makes her smile.
“I always laugh. I worked in five different places and never left the building,” she says.
In the year It was called Marshalltown Medical and Surgery Center and then Central Iowa Healthcare before finally becoming Unity Point Health – Marshalltown in 2017.
Bryant said there was a short period when the hospital hosted the lab from Cedar Rapids-based Health Enterprises, but Bryant always stayed at the same facility, though she eventually switched buildings when the hospital moved to the new location. on South Center Street earlier this year.
Administration and names aside, Bryant enjoys her time working for the community at Marshalltown Hospital, and while much of her work is behind the scenes, she is happy to be able to connect with the patients who walk through the doors.
“One thing I’ve always enjoyed about this big hospital is the relationship we still have with the patient. We see the patients and I actually became very good friends with a lot of patients who had to come a lot, but in big hospitals you are just a number. You never see a patient, here, we actually go to the ER, walk up, and so you get that connection with the patient,” Bryant said.
Bryant plans to retire at the end of August and is looking forward to spending time with her husband, a retired police officer. They are planning to travel, and they are planning a vacation in the near future.
Bryant feels very fortunate to be able to enjoy her job, and looking back on her career with Marshalltown Hospital feels nothing but fulfilled.
“I’m always happy that it’s something I enjoy doing,” Bryant said. “When you go to work every day, there are always bad days, and some days it’s just work, but when you have to go to a job you hate, that’s even harder. So you want to enjoy what you’re doing, and I’ve always been very happy with what I’ve chosen as a career.
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Contact Susanna Meyer
at 641-753-6611 or
smeyer@timesrepublican.com
