" I have many great memories of wonderful times spent with my classmates. To this day I am still very close with a lot of my classmates from the first four year nursing program."
Former Registered Nurse
Professional Career:
After graduating from Adelphi’s School of Nursing in 1949, Doris Bennett’s first job was as a nurse on the obstetrics and gynecology floor at Meadowbrook Hospital, today Nassau County Medical Center. Following this position, Mrs. Bennett took a job with the A & P Company in Garden City; “We did physicals for all the stores on Long Island,” says Mrs. Bennett. “I was also nurse to the office staff and the warehouse staff.”
After taking a break from nursing to start a family, Mrs. Bennett began working at the South Nassau Hospital in Rockville Centre. “I worked on the ob-gyn floor with a side track to medicine and surgery one summer,” she explains. Following her role at the hospital, Mrs. Bennett went on to become a school nurse at Davison Avenue School in Malverne, Long Island. She worked as a school nurse for 25 years, an ideal position for a mother of three children: “When my children were off from school, I had the chance to be with them.”
After retiring in 1989, Mrs. Bennett and her husband Robert enjoyed visiting relatives in Europe every summer. In 1993, they bought a double mobile home in Florida in a community with 15 other Long Island couples, many of whom were their high school classmates. “We would be in Florida from January through April,” says Mrs. Bennett. “We would also get together with two of my classmates from Adelphi’s nursing program and their husbands.”
Mrs. Bennett and her husband were married for 60 years. Mrs. Bennett has three children and nine grandchildren; all three families live within 7 miles of each other.
When and why did you first want to become a nurse?
When I was in the fourth grade the father of one of my classmates passed away. His mother was a nurse and she was able to keep the family going as before. That impressed me and it was then I decided that I wanted to be a nurse.
Do you have favorite memories of your time at Adelphi and your residencies?
I enjoyed my associations with my Sigma Kappa sorority sisters and I have many great memories of wonderful times spent with my classmates. To this day I am still very close with a lot of my classmates from the first four year nursing program.
I will never forget Mildred Montag and Dean Ruth Harley; they truly impressed me.
I believe my nursing degree was very valuable as it prepared me for different aspects of nursing.
What are some changes you have seen in nursing throughout the years?
There is much more to learn today than there was when we were in school. Things are much more technical now.
What advice would you give to today’s nursing students?
Stay with it and you will have a very rewarding career which can take you in many different directions. Good nurses are needed more than ever these days.
For further information, please contact:
Todd Wilson
Strategic Communications Director
p – 516.237.8634
e – twilson@adelphi.edu