Do you have relationships with people who’ve come in and out of your life at just the right times? People who you connect with so deeply, that no matter how much time has passed, you pick up your friendship without missing a beat? That’s how I’d describe my relationship with Myrna.

In the spring of 1990, my parents and I attended an open house at the nursing school I would be attending that fall. The program consisted of separating the parents from the soon-to-be students for different sessions. When we met up again, my parents introduced me to a couple who they had become fast friends with – and who just happened to be from our same home town! It was Myrna’s mom and dad! And so it was our parents who initially introduced Myrna and I. We spent some time talking that day, amazed that we had never met before back at home. We went to different high schools, but literally lived within five miles of each other!

So we started school and became fast friends. Our nursing class was small enough that everyone got to know each other pretty well. Most of our classes were together and no other students at the university we attended had a schedule like ours as nursing students! After graduation, I remained in the Philadelphia area and Myrna had a commitment in New York City, so we were separated for several years. There was no social media at the time and we were both pretty busy starting our careers, so our contact was pretty limited.

Fast forward to 1995/1996 and Myrna moved to Philadelphia, taking a job in the same hospital I was working. She was in the Surgical ICU, I was in the Medical ICU, so our paths did cross occasionally at work, but it was that time together that really sticks with me. We were single, living in the city, meeting for dinners and hanging out together. We both returned to school and while her focus was on management and mine, women’s health, we still managed to take some of our requisite classes together --- research and statistics. You definitely need a good friend during those graduate level courses – I was so grateful for Myrna!

After we finished our degrees, over the next several years, we both settled down, got married, and started our families. I left the bedside and started working as a clinical editor. Myrna moved to Texas, and later to Colorado and explored some other non-clinical opportunities as well --- in pharmaceutical research, and, later, medical simulation.

Myrna came to Philadelphia a few years later on a work trip and we got to spend a little time together and she explained her work in simulation – I was so impressed. Shortly thereafter, she reached out to me: “Would I like to write some cases for her?” “Of course!”

Fast forward again, now to 2012, I was attending a conference in Colorado. “Hi Myrna – want to try to meet up?” “Yes, I’ll meet you at the airport!” It had been such a long time since we’d seen each other! So we visited briefly then and a few years later, our team at NursingCenter was looking for another clinical editor to join our team. I knew just who to call.