How Lynn Dow’s 50-Year Career Made Her Dream Come True

When Lynn Dow, RN, MSN, was a young girl, she dreamed of being a writer, and she wanted to write novels. But when her Dad died shortly before she turned 14, there was no money for college.

“Instead I had to choose between the three occupations available to women in the 1950s—teaching, nursing, or secretarial work. I chose nursing which, at the time, I considered to be the lesser of the three evils. It turned out to be a very good choice as once I got into it I realized that I was meant to be a nurse,” says Dow, now retired from the University of San Francisco Medical Center, where she worked over the years as a staff nurse, head nurse, nursing supervisor, and nursing educator.

Dow staying in the nursing field for 50 years. “Once I got into the profession, I never thought of being anything but a nurse, and when I look back over the last 50 years, I realize how lucky I was to have a career that kept me engaged for such a long time. This attitude kept me going—in addition to the fact that whenever I felt myself getting restless in my job a new opportunity would arise and it would be like starting anew,” admits Dow. “I believe this is one of the greatest advantages of the nursing profession—there is always a new and challenging opportunity just waiting for you to take it on.”

Lynn Dow, RN, MSN

When Dow started in nursing, she couldn’t have imagined that the career she originally thought she was settling for, but turned out to love, would bring her dream back.

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“When I retired, I finally had a little time and decided to take a writing class. I soon discovered I was not a novelist, but was advised by the teacher to write about something I knew,” says Dow. “Unsurprisingly, I chose to write about my experiences in nursing. I did not have any notes or diaries, but as I began to validate my memories with classmates and colleagues, they became a valuable resource in reminding me of certain events and supplying me with old class schedules and notes.”

From this came Dow’s first book, Nightingale Tales, a memoir of stories about how nursing changed from early in her career to the present day. “Without a doubt the biggest change that I witnessed throughout my long career was observing the nurse evolve from being a handmaiden to the physician to an independent practitioner. When I started in nursing in the mid-1950s, nurses were expected to stand up and offer their chair to the doctor when he came into the nursing station, and I was once reprimanded for not doing so—not because I was being obstinate, I just didn’t see him come in. Fifty years later when I retired, nurses are recognized as independent, integral contributors to the patient’s plan of care. What a change!

“Technology has certainly played a part in the evolution of nursing—inventions that enabled the nurse to spend less time performing tasks and more time in practicing the art of nursing. Something as simple as the electric beds we all take for granted now, played a huge part in freeing up the nurse. Not having to stop what you were doing to crank a bed up or down every time a patient needed a position change was a huge contributor to improved nursing care,” recalls Dow.

With a long career, Dow has lots of funny stories. “I was once given a beautiful silk lace half slip by a patient, one of the Hearst brothers of newspaper fame, for emptying his urinal,” she says. “We were never supposed to accept gifts from patients, but I couldn’t resist when he told me to take a box off the shelf in the closet. I stashed it in my purse and didn’t open it until I got home. It was beautiful and probably a bit inappropriate, but it gave everyone a good laugh.”

“Everyone smoked in the 50s, myself included. Going for a job interview, I was met by the director of nursing whose first question as she greeted me was ‘Do you smoke?’ Oh no, I thought, she can smell the cigarette I had just finished, and she doesn’t like a smoker. But when I confessed that I did, she steered me into the converted patient bathroom off of her office and instructed me to sit on the edge of the bathtub, while she took a seat on the toilet, lit my cigarette and proceeded to interview me, while we both flicked the ashes into the sink,” she says.

Although Dow says that she has many more stories to tell, she’s not sure if she’ll do another book of this type. It’s not, though, out of the question. “I am surprised at how many people who have read the book comment on the fact that they view it as an important piece of nursing history. When writing it, I never thought about it in that context, but I am so pleased that people see it as an important contribution to nursing.”