Little did she know how apt the title of the class would be. It was there she met the wife of David Neustadt, MD, the physician who would become her employer from the Nixon era to the present. “Dr. Neustadt had gotten a grant through Nixon’s $4.5-million grant for arthritis research and then he asked me into his private practice two years after that,” she says.
Phillips, now 63, is in the twilight of her career and – looking back – says the details can make or break a career. “I remember one patient who took part in a study,” she says. “I watched the way she was moving, and I guessed the study wasn’t helping her. Yet she kept saying it was. Finally, I took her aside and said, ‘Now I don’t think this is really doing it.’ She finally admitted it and we got her on something else. Soon she was feeling much better. I asked her why she didn’t speak up before, and she said it was because she was proud of always sticking things out. It’s our job as nurses to pay close attention to the hints a patient drops.”
But Phillips hasn’t just helped patients improve through her observations; she has even gotten them on staff. “We had a retired VA nurse in two studies and she had such a helpful way about her. I felt she might want out of retirement and talked to her about a job, and now she’s been part time with us for four years.”
I ask Phillips about the most memorable object in her office. She takes a moment and then it suddenly, wistfully comes to her. “Easy!” she laughs. “The grandfather clock.” For someone who finds time like Phillips, could it have been anything else?
Eric Butterman is a freelance writer based in New York City.
