Lisa Campbell began her health care career as a patient sitter at AdventHealth Orlando while attending nursing school at AdventHealth University. The organizations’ mission of extending the healing ministry of Christ attracted her AdventHealth.
“I’m in awe of the mission,” Lisa said. “I had been involved with volunteer service with various hospitals before, but the mission drew me here.”
Over the two decades that Lisa has been at AdventHealth, she has held multiple positions including progressive care unit nurse, preceptor, charge nurse and clinical educator. Now she is the executive director for nursing clinical support and education for multiple AdventHealth hospitals in the Orlando area, supervising a team of 11.
“I lead knowing that the mission is our priority,” she said. “With every project we work on, we focus on how we can care for our community, nurses and patients. We open meetings with prayer. That spiritual focus is in the fiber of this place.”
Even though Lisa is further away from direct patient care in her current role, she remembers how being a spiritual source of strength for her patients impacted their lives.
One experience she recalls was a day she was mentoring a nurse to help change a patient’s port needle. The patient was a pastor who had liver cancer and did not have long to live. As Lisa was working, she was humming a song, and the patient stopped her and asked what she was singing.
“I told him it is How Great is Our God,” Lisa said. “He asked me to sing it for him, so I did.”
“How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God.”
“He told his wife how much that song blessed him and gave him peace that day,” she said. “They thanked me because they knew the spirit of God was in our hospital. He was in a place of love and peace even though he could not be at home. I was his nurse when he passed away.”
Years later, Lisa found herself on the receiving end of AdventHealth’s mission. In 2014, she lost her father, grandmother, and close aunt within three months.
“My team supported me and encouraged me to take my time coming back to work,” said Lisa. “There were flowers on my desk the day I returned. I felt their genuine concern for my well-being.”
Lisa has been the recipient of other kinds of support during her career at AdventHealth. Mentors have not only encouraged her to pursue leadership roles, but also given her opportunities to try them out.
“I taught a nurse leadership course for nurse managers and assistant nurse managers,” Lisa explained. “I loved it! I realized how impactful developing nurse leaders could be.”
That experience and the time away around the loss of her family members provided time for her to reflect and change course. She decided she would move into nursing leadership instead of moving forward with her initial idea of becoming a nurse practitioner.
“I’ve been here 21 years and have had plenty of opportunities to go elsewhere,” said Lisa. “At AdventHealth, I have felt a sense of belonging and growth with the potential that people saw in me. As nurses, we have lots of opportunities. But it’s important to be in a place where the organization prioritizes the well-being of its employees and knows they are in a place where their spiritual needs are met.”