When the Indian River Medical Center started searching for a new chief nursing office, retired U.S. Army Major Linda Walton’s resume stood out.
Not only had Walton served her country as the assistant chief nursing officer for the 21st combat support hospital in Mosul, Iraq, she also served at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as well as at hospitals in Seoul, South Korea, Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Sill, Okla., during her 20-year army career. Most recently she was chief nursing officer at South Lake Hospital in Orlando.
On top of all that, Walton actually began her medical career right here in Vero Beach, when she worked as candy striper at the county hospital.
“My nursing career,” Walton confirms, “really started at Indian River Memorial Hospital. I graduated from high school here in Vero Beach and while I was in high school, I was trying to figure out and kind of hone down what I really wanted to do. So, I volunteered at the previous hospital to this one in the mid-1970s.”
“I had the opportunity to see what nurses did firsthand here in our community,” she says with a smile, “and that really shaped my decision to pursue this career path.”
Then, the former candy striper-turned U.S. Army major-turned CNO unabashedly admits, “the opportunity to return home where my family lives and be able to serve in this community is really quite an honor for me.”
With roughly 680 nurses of various stripes – including 550 registered nurses, 115 certified nursing assistants and 14 licensed practical nurses – already on staff at IRMC, Walton is now leading a battalion-sized team in potentially life-saving missions every day, right in her own hometown.
That might be quite a challenge some folks, but this Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran doesn’t seem at all rattled by the prospect.
And it appears Walton has already found a kind of kindred spirit in IRMC’s chief medical office, Dr. Kathy Grichnik.
“Kathy and I both approach what we do from the same central point,” says Walton, “and that’s the patient. At the end of the day, my responsibility, just like hers, is to keep the patient safe. That’s really our ultimate goal.”
Still, no one rises to the rank of major without drive and ambition and – even to the casual observer – Walton appears to have those qualities in spades.
“We’re always looking for opportunities where we might achieve centers of excellence. We’ve [already] put a lot of focus and effort into those clinical areas that are important to this community – like cancer care and heart care – and we are working on an initiative now around orthopedic care to look at the whole continuum as we manage those patients that are having joint replacements.”
“That really does take teamwork,” Walton says.
It also takes experience, and in Vero Beach, experience in geriatric medicine is another definite plus.
Walton has that, too.
After her military career, she became the clinical nurse manager of medicine and geriatrics at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, as well as its director of nursing services, chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services before returning home to Florida.
“I was very fortunate,” Walton explains, “to work in an academic medical center where we had some innovative opportunities looking specifically at the geriatric population and looking at those kinds of environmental factors or medications that can impact [seniors’] responses when they’re in a hospital setting.”
Acknowledging Vero’s “significant geriatric population,” Walton says she is looking for opportunities to see what she might be able to “infuse” into IRMC’s routines.
After just three months of the job, Walton has no doubts she made the right move – by not actually moving at all – and signing on with IRMC as its new chief nursing officer.
As she puts it, “I feel like I was meant to be here in Vero Beach at this time and for this opportunity.”
