Lifelong learner

Nursing grad Mary Lambert has followed a path in public health

by Shawn Ryan

The nurse, dressed in her bright, white uniform, often stood in the doorway of the clinic in Brainerd High School, watching the students walk by as they went from class to class.

Mary Lambert was fascinated by her. The way she looked. The way she would answer any question Lambert asked. The way she was just there.

"She was phenomenal. I would just make up excuses, not to go to the clinic, but to walk by there and hope she was at the door," says Lambert, who graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing in 1978, the school's second graduating class.

The nurse at Brainerd wasn't the only reason Lambert chose nursing and public health as a career, but she was a building block. With a UTC nursing degree in hand, Lambert spent the next 34 years in healthcare, working for, among others, Erlanger Hospital, the Hamilton County Health Department, the U.S. Veteran's Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Drug Administration.

She was in her office in Washington, D.C., when the 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11, killing a total of 189. "It's the biggest, blackest column of smoke I have ever seen, that I ever want to see," she says.

Lambert retired in 2012 and returned to Chattanooga, although she remained involved in local health organizations and local issues. With her experience ability to work on a team, in April she was chosen by Mayor Tim Kelly to be director of Community Health, a newly created position on his senior staff. Lambert says she was silent for a moment when she received the phone call—out of the blue—asking her to take the position.

"I had to pause, but I couldn't say, 'No.' I retired from active-duty service, but I did not retire from service," she says.

Patti Childers, project coordinator for the Hamilton County Family Justice Center, has known Lambert worked with her on several public health projects, both governmental and strictly volunteer.

"She is like a sponge, her wealth of knowledge is amazing, her level of care and concern," Childers says.

"Dr. Lambert has the ability to see the larger picture, to see how things can affect the community at large."

A LIFE IN NURSING

A native of Chattanooga, Lambert grew up as Mary Dawson in East Chattanooga, the fourth of five children. "They call that 'next to the baby,'" she explains.

She attended Orchard Knob Elementary and Junior High, graduated from Brainerd High in 1970 and enrolled in the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Halfway through nursing school, she got married and moved to Virginia. "I was following the husband," she says.

She returned to Chattanooga with her young son in 1975, enrolled in UTC and earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1978. The lessons she learned at UTC—both in classroom and beyond— have been invaluable in her life, she says.

"The value of knowing the community. The value of public health and increased awareness. The value of knowledge, of being a lifelong learner," she says. "That was the UTC faculty in my head. You can't think that you've arrived and you know it all, and you don't need to learn anything else."

In the years after UTC, she went on to earn a master's degree in nursing from Emory University in Atlanta and a doctorate in nursing practice from Vanderbilt University. She spent time as a nurse with Erlanger and the Hamilton County Health Department. She moved to a hospital in Grenada, Mississippi. From there she took jobs in Memphis at the Veterans Administration Medical Center then at International Paper.

Born into a family that strongly believed in military service, she joined the U.S. Army Reserves in 1979, and was stationed at Fort Jackson in South Carolina during the First Gulf War in 1992, vaccinating soldiers before they went to the Middle East.

"Some of my team were vaccinating people on the tarmac as they were loading them on planes," she says.

Her resume is packed with health service. Advanced practice nurse, taking care of migrant and seasonal farm workers in primary care clinics for the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. A member of the review team for new drug applications at the FDA. Branch chief for the CDC's national immunization program.

As director for its Office of Military Liaison and Veterans Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., she was the emissary between the department, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"You'd be surprised at the connections that have to be sorted out or set up between those big federal departments," she says. "They're all in. They're all huge, ridiculously loud."

After 9/11, in the administration of President George W. Bush, she helped create the national Volunteer Medical Reserve Corps, which organizes units of volunteers—many of whom have medical and public health backgrounds—to assist emergency workers in preparations for emergencies and, when needed, pitch in to help when they occur.

HOME AGAIN

Back in Chattanooga after 2012, she volunteered at the Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic and worked at testing sites in the county when COVID-19 hit. With her background, she was part of the discussion when the idea of a community health office was raised and gave some ideas about approaching the CDC and other health-oriented groups for advice. Then came the phone call and the job offer to run the Community Health Office.

"Am I looking for another 30 years before retirement? No, but if I can help set this up, if I can be the catalyst that helps set that up..."

Five months after the office began, her schedule is swelled to bursting with presentations to municipal and community groups, attending conferences and, obviously, dealing with COVID. Once the pandemic is under control, though, the Community Health Office can turn its attention to the issues it was created to address, she says.

"The focus will be health disparities in populations, to issues and concerns around the social determinants of health. How much people know about their health. What they need to do to remain healthy or regain their health.

"There are so many places we can make a dent in this and improve the health. Because if we improve the health of the least healthy in our population, we improve the health and the economic welfare of the entire community, the entire city, the entire county."

She can't help herself from helping, she insists.

"My mom and my siblings tell me I'm—quote— 'tenderhearted.' OK, I mean, if there's something going on with somebody, I want to help fix it or whatever."

She is like a sponge, her wealth of knowledge is amazing, her level of care and concern.

—Patti Childers