Betty McKisson: First Nurse Practitioner in Clarion County

Jill McDermott

Jill McDermott

Published November 17, 2019 5:50 am
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CLARION CO., Pa. (EYT) – Betty McKisson is being honored as we come to the close of National Nurse Practitioner Week.

McKisson is the first person to work as a nurse practitioner in Clarion County. In large part, she owes that distinction to her sense of humor.

A nurse practitioner is a nurse who gets further training and can prescribe medication, examine patients, diagnose illnesses, and provide treatment much like physicians do.

McKisson was part of the first class of nurse practitioners trained through the University of Pittsburgh in 1974. The program was established with federal money.

“Because at that time there was a doctor shortage in the backwoods,” McKisson told exploreClarion.com.

“They were hunting for nurses, figuring they could train them to do a little bit more, and they could go be the extra legs in taking care of these people in the boonies.”

By this point, McKisson had already had a varied career working at West Penn Hospital, at the Clarion Hospital and as an occupational health nurse at the former Owens Illinois glass plant in Clarion. She was 36 years old, and her son was just one.

McKisson had written to programs throughout the state to inquire about further opportunities they offered for nurses. She got a letter back from Pitt inviting her to apply for its new nurse practitioner program, and she did just that.

When school invited her for an interview, McKisson searched her memory for what she’d learned in high school was proper interview behavior. That included dressing well, don’t wear nail polish, no perfume, and don’t sit down until you’re invited to do so.

“I had a brown coat dress that I wore and alligator heels, and I didn’t look too bad,” she said. “I thought: ‘I can handle this.’”

But, it had been a while since she had been in Pittsburgh. She had some difficulty navigating the one-way streets to get to the parking garage. Then, in her dress and heels, she had to climb what the nurse practitioner students came to refer to as “Cardiac Hill” due to its steepness. She stopped into a restroom to comb her hair and collect herself. That’s when she realized she was late.

Once in the building, she got directions from a student to where the interview was to be held.

“So, I’m trucking down the hall in these heels,” McKisson remembered. “The room where this interview was was really not a very nice office. It was like a hole in the wall that they made into a room.”

She entered the office, plunked herself down into the only available chair, and announced: “I’m going to have a heart attack! My husband told me when I came down here to put gum in my mouth and make sure not to make a fool of myself!”

Here, her cheerful demeanor sobers.

“I realized, I’d just blown my interview,” she said. “They wanted a professional person, and I was this fool. I took a big breath and thought ‘Well, you just blew it.’”

From that point on, the interview, which lasted two hours, was easy because she wasn’t nervous anymore. She was sure her entrance had blown any chance she had of being accepted.

The interview included questions about whether or not she would contradict a doctor or refuse to follow a doctor’s orders if she didn’t believe that it was proper. The answer, of course, was a resounding “Yes.”

As the interview concluded, she discovered there were more than 300 applicants for four sections of training with nine participants in each section. She wished her interviewers well with such a complicated process and hoped they wouldn’t need something for stomach upset.

It was several weeks later that a letter arrived. She was then receiving her mail at the Fisher Store. She picked up her mail and noticed it contained a letter from Pitt. As she drove home with her son in his car seat, she first decided to wait until her husband got home to open the letter. As she drove, however, she decided maybe she should take a peek.

She went back and forth between the two options for a while.

“Then, I thought: ‘I have to find out,’” she said with a huge smile and twinkle in her eye. “Just as I opened the top, I saw the words ‘We are pleased,’ and I dropped the letter. Then I thought: ‘What am I going to do?’”

While tuition was free, McKisson would need to buy her own equipment. Then there was her son, who she was still breastfeeding.

With the support of her husband, she found a place to stay in Pittsburgh and became one of the first people to complete the nurse practitioner program.

It wasn’t until she was an official graduate of the program that her mentor finally answered her repeated question about why she had been accepted. She was the oldest in the class, and then there was that interview she was so sure she had blown.

The answer was, of course, her sense of humor – especially when it came to the interview.

While McKisson now had the certification to take on expanded duties, she had actually been doing much of it all along.

She remembered working at the Clarion Hospital at its previous location on Seventh Street during the night shift. There were no doctors there. She was responsible for assessing the situation and calling in a doctor if needed.

“We never knew what was going to come through that door when the bell rang.”

There was no ambulance, so when McKisson rode along with patients being transferred to other locations, it was in a hearse.

When doctors were busy delivering babies, it was McKisson who took his/her “black bag,” which contained medical supplies, and made house calls. She once got lost in Elk City during such a call.

You can now find McKisson at Wellness Health Options where she offers therapeutic massage, acupuncture, and wellness programs. She opened that practice in 1999 because she has always believed in listening to people and treating the whole person.

“As a nurse practitioner, my job — besides taking care of people — is really educating them in how to stay well.”

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