MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s National Nurses Week, and throughout the Mid-South, hospitals are celebrating the staff who keep the places running – the nurses.
One couple – not from Memphis – originally, found love, then a journey that led them to a new home at Saint Francis Hospital in Memphis.
“What I like most about nursing is I like being able to be there for patients and their families whenever they’re at their worst or there’s been a change,” said Matthew Severns.
“Really the emotions that come up from taking care of someone at their, you know, their hardest moments in their life and getting to bring them up for that or helping their family through that. That really tugs on my heart strings,” said Brett Severns.
“The joy that I get out of it is making other people happy and making them better,” said Brett.
“Nursing is a million jobs in one and you can do anything that you want to with nursing,” said Matthew.
Not only do these two have a love of nursing – they have a love for each other.
“And this will be year three that we’ve been married. We’ve been together for five years I think towards the end of this year,” said Matthew.
“We’re from a small town in western KY. We were working at a small community hospital, and when the travel nurse kinda boom hit we decided that we were gonna sell our house, quit our jobs, buy a camper and go traveling. Because we were young, and we just decided we love our profession. Through that journey, we wound up at Saint Francis and we just loved it. We really did not think Memphis would be as much fun as it is. But we got into the Grizzlies. We got into the Redbirds,” said Brett.
“Being able to get routed into the community and with Saint Francis, it really helped fill a connection that I hadn’t felt any of the other places that we traveled,” said Matthew.
“This is the best place that we’ve worked. The people were so kind, and the people were very fun. We just kind of fell in love with it and decided to buy a house and make it home and work here full time. Because it just, it’s, it’s home,” said Brett.