Saturday, August 23, 2008

Midwife has high standards, compassion

Argen Duncan El Defensor Chieftain Reporter, aduncan@dchieftain.com

Sue Campbell has served expectant mothers and newborn babies in Socorro for almost 30 years — and delivered about 2,000 babies during her 16 years as a certified nurse midwife.

Friday, Aug 22, was her last day with Socorro Medical Associates. Campbell is moving to Ohio to practice midwifery there.

"She's one of the most conscientious and caring and giving people that I've ever met," said Socorro Medical Associates pediatrician Leslie Johnson.

Johnson knows of no bad outcomes in Campbell's entire career, despite the difficulty of obstetrics.

The pediatrician said Campbell practiced within the scope of obstetrics and gynecology better than anyone else she had known in her career.

"She had what I term a 'sixth sense' for when something unusual was coming her way in a delivery, and with her knowledge, she prevented a number of potentially disastrous results because of her meticulous care," Johnson said.

The two have worked together since Campbell became a midwife, and Johnson said the community would sorely miss Campbell.

"It's been a privilege to work beside her, and I consider her an equal colleague even though the medical world considers her a midlevel practitioner," Johnson said.

Kim Lopez, registered nurse in labor and delivery, has worked with Campbell, who also delivered Lopez' babies, for 12 years. Lopez said Campbell also takes her own time to travel to Alamo and treat people there.

"I think Sue is a wonderful, kind caring person who does wonderful things for the community, not just Socorro but Magdalena and Alamo," Lopez said.

The nurse said Campbell treats each client with kindness and compassion.

Campbell delivered Socorroan Chrissy Oxford's two youngest children.

"She's awesome," Oxford said.

Oxford said Campbell is kind and really cares.

Once, when her family was moving away from Socorro, Oxford told her husband that if they had any more children, he would have to fly her back to Socorro so Campbell could deliver them.

"She is that good," Oxford said.

Dr. Norman Reid, who has been Campbell's supervisor, said she has been the backbone of Socorro Medical Associates obstetrics for years.

"The standards she set for herself, for her obstetrics and well-woman care, were well above the accepted standards," Reid said.

Also, he said the community and her colleagues and friends would miss her.

Campbell said she moved to Socorro in 1979 as a registered nurse from California, where she worked in neonatal intensive care. She wanted to work with babies, but Socorro General Hospital was too small for such a unit.

At the time, Campbell felt newborns weren't receiving proper care.

Campbell decided that to have healthy newborns, they needed healthy deliveries, so she became the obstetrics supervisor and worked to improve care for mothers in labor.

After Campbell had been in Socorro 13 years, Dr. Robert Markwell and Reid stopped practicing obstetrics.

The doctors and Socorro General sent Campbell to midwifery school.

Before becoming a midwife, Campbell cared for mothers through labor and then called in a doctor to deliver the baby. Afterward, she handled the deliveries herself.

Campbell stayed in Socorro while her son and daughter grew up.

"And then I just stayed because there was a job to be done to deliver babies," she said.

Now, Campbell is moving to Athens, Ohio, to work as a nurse midwife, mainly because her daughter lives three hours from there.

"And I'm getting older and getting up in the middle of the night for deliveries is just too hard, and I won't have to do that there," she said.

Because of more providers, Campbell expects to be on call once a week instead of all the time.

"I'm going to miss all my patients a lot, and I'm sorry to leave, but it's time for me to leave," she said. "And I really enjoyed taking care of all the women and babies."

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