Like mother, like daughter: At Sentara Health, nursing is a family affair

Across Sentara, from the Blue Ridge mountains to coastal Virginia and northeast North Carolina, nearly 10,000 nursing professionals show up every day to care for patients, support one another, and carry forward a tradition of compassionate service that stretches back more than 130 years.

For many of those nurses, that tradition is deeply personal. It's more than just a career. It's a calling passed down from one generation to the next. Their mothers were nurses here first.

Rita and Emma: Same floor, same shift, same work family

For Rita Salmon, nursing at Sentara Obici Hospital in Suffolk, Virginia has been intimately bound to family.

When she started as a diploma nurse on the family maternity unit in 1982, she couldn't have predicted that 43 years later, her daughter, Emma Doughtie, would be working on the same floor.

"When Emma first started, my colleague came up to me, put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'She's going to be fine,'" said Salmon, who retired in December. "That was very reassuring."

To keep family traditions intact, leadership placed them on the same shift and holiday rotation, allowing them to share work breaks and carpool to work.

That shared history created a layer of comfort for Doughtie, as a novice nurse entering a high-stakes specialty.

"Mom's relationships helped bridge the gap for me starting out," Doughtie said.

The mother-daughter duo shared such a deep, implicit trust in their unit that Doughtie gave birth to her own child on the same floor where they both worked, surrounded by her mother and colleagues.

"You're putting your loved ones in the hands of the people you work with," Salmon said. "It really speaks to the family community we've built here over the decades."

Cassie and Meghan: The night shift runs in the family

Cassie Verlander was a young, widowed mother, raising a daughter and a son with cerebral palsy, when she pivoted from a business career to nursing school. As a newly licensed RN, she went to work at Sentara CarePlex Hospital in Hampton, Virginia 18 years ago, and she's been there ever since.

"I think I wanted to be a nurse since I was a little girl," Verlander said. "I took care of my grandparents when I was growing up, and I still take care of my son. It seemed like a natural transition, and I found my calling with Sentara."

She chose the night shift on the hospital's cardiovascular unit, which allowed her to sleep during the day while her kids were in school. It's her shift of choice now, partly because of the unique brand of camaraderie among overnight nurses.

"We're one big team, one big family," Cassie said. "Everybody steps up to help when you need it. No matter what happens, we make it work for the patients."

Verlander's daughter, Meghan Nowell, followed her mother into nursing. She has been at Sentara CarePlex for two years, also on the night shift, on a medical/surgical unit.

"My role model is my mother," Nowell said. She recalled bring-your-kids-to-work days when she watched her mother interacting with patients and doctors and sharing her enthusiasm. "That sold me," she said.

Both women appreciate Sentara's new virtual support team for overnight nurses.

"It's been helpful," Nowell said. "You never feel alone."

Mirna and Maxine: Three generations and counting

Mirna Medina-Gonzalez has been a critical care nurse throughout her 28-year career. Her first jobs were at the bedside in ICUs. She was offered a leadership role after seven years, and she's been manager of Sentara's groundbreaking eICU remote monitoring program since its inception in 2000.

"I've always known, since I was a little girl, that I was going to be a nurse," she said, recalling bandaging her dolls.

Her daughter, Maxine Morales, got the nursing bug at the dinner table, listening to her mother decompress after difficult days.

"I was hooked," Morales said. "Listening to Mom sparked my interest. I knew how much she loved helping people, and it rubbed off on me."

With brief detours at other hospitals, Morales has been at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, a regional Level I trauma center, since a summer internship when she was in college. A full-time job followed her degree in 2006. Sentara supported her in earning her master's in nursing leadership from Old Dominion University in 2011.

Morales is a Patient Care Supervisor (PCS), the nurse responsible for everything that happens in the 525-bed hospital during her three 12-hour overnight shifts every weekend. A PCS is never still. It's a demanding role, but she loves the challenge, the culture, and her colleagues. And it allows her to be home with her kids during the week.

"I'm never alone, never stranded," she said. "Call it a trauma bond. It's a bond of trust and teamwork and collaboration. I lean on unit managers and charge nurses to handle things until I get there."

After years in the role, she says she still learns something new every night. "I'm in a beautiful position," she said. "And make no mistake: we choose this."

Morales's 13-year-old daughter, Victoria, is choosing the same path. "I want to go to Old Dominion University and work here and be a midwife," she said.

She'll be the third nurse in the family.

Haidee and Nicole: A professional home, passed down

Haidee Lavina has been a nurse for 31 years and worked at several large hospitals in the D.C. metropolitan area. Yet, as she explains it, "I knew I had found my professional home when I joined Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center in 2009."

"Beyond the commitment to exceptional care, I found a culture of compassion, teamwork, and support that aligned with my values as a nurse and a leader," said Lavina, who works in heart and vascular services.

One of her proudest moments was seeing her daughter, Nicole Lavina, begin her nursing journey at the same hospital, watching her grow and learn and make a difference in the lives of others.

"I gained my passion for nursing from my mother," Nicole Lavina said. "And I learned that the organization one works for makes a profound difference in job satisfaction."

Watching her mother's deep integration within her department, and the collaborative culture that grew from it, made Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center an easy choice for the start of her own career.

"I've found my own work family here," she said.

Nursing at Sentara: The culture behind the calling

The stories of Cassie and Meghan, Mirna and Maxine, Rita and Emma, and Haidee and Nicole are not outliers. They reflect something deeper: a workplace culture that nurses don't just work in, but grow up watching their mothers love.

That culture doesn't happen by accident.

Sentara has made nursing excellence a cornerstone of who we are. Eleven of 12 hospitals hold Magnet recognition, the most prestigious designation in nursing excellence. New graduate nurses are automatically enrolled in a six-month RN Residency program, pairing hands-on clinical training with mentorship and professional development from day one. And a shared governance model ensures nurses at every level have a real voice in the clinical standards and policies that shape their work.

For nurses who want to grow, Sentara supports the journey with tuition assistance, student loan repayment, and fully funded pathways to a BSN and beyond.

It's the kind of environment where a daughter watches her mother thrive for decades and thinks: I want that too.

Nurses interested in joining the Sentara team can learn more at sentaracareers.com or contact the Talent Acquisition team at [email protected].