WASHINGTON — Eleven-year-old Kelly K. Spencer put on her gloves, apron and face mask as she prepared to enter the hospital operating room in 2000. This wasn’t your typical take-a-child-to-work day, this was an experience that would fuel her dreams and shape her future.
Spencer, who grew up in the small rural town of Clarion, Iowa, became interested in nursing at a young age, thanks to the guidance of her three aunts who were nurses.
“I liked helping people and that was a very giving profession,” she said. “I was particularly drawn to the atmosphere of the operating room. I just knew that’s where I was meant to be.”
One of her aunts worked in a hospital operating room and agreed to let Spencer shadow her. The time she spent there increased her desire to become a nurse.
As she grew up, Spencer also became interested in the military. She looked for a way to combine both her dreams and found out about the Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps while she was in high school.
“The military really appealed to me just because it seemed exciting and a fun challenge,” she said. “Finding out I could do [nursing and the military] together was just a perfect fit.”
She graduated from Creighton University in Nebraska and was commissioned through the school’s Army ROTC program in 2011. Right out of the gate, she envisioned herself deploying and making a difference.
However, there is a developmental transition program that allows new nurses to work on basic clinical skills before they deploy. So, she spent her first year in service at the Evans Army Community Hospital in Fort Carson, Colorado, as a medical-surgical nurse.
“I wanted to deploy, but I didn’t quite realize the importance of spending time at the military treatment facilities and getting solid nursing skills before I went out,” she said. “In hindsight, one of the things I value most about the Nurse Corps is how they invest in nurses and make sure we have the experience we need.”
The call to be in the operating room never left Spencer, and her command supported her decision to attend a 16-week military perioperative nursing course. After graduating, she spent a year in the operating room back at Fort Carson before heading to Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
There, she continued to hone her skills as the lead neurosurgery nurse for three years before getting her "dream job" as the operating room officer in charge with the 745th Forward Surgical Team at Fort Bliss, Texas. She was finally switching from clinical to operational medicine.
She got her wish to deploy in 2018 when her unit supported Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria. She spent 10 months as a team lead taking care of U.S. and partner nation trauma patients. She worked on a small team and had to challenge herself to step out of her comfort zone.
She often found new ways to sterilize instruments and used her clinical skills to perform primary and secondary surveys on patients. Some days were hectic, and others were slow, but she appreciated them equally.
“Once in a while we would do really exciting things, like life-saving surgeries,” she said. “But honestly, that wasn’t the norm; that’s not every single day. The things we did each day, even if they were menial or not necessarily glamorous, those things were making a difference to our patients, and I think that was very meaningful to me.”
She then faced her most challenging assignment in 2019 as the first brigade nurse of the newly formed 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade at JBLM. With the unit just standing up, she had to learn her job on the fly with no one there to teach her.
She needed to find the right balance for her three priorities of ensuring the care of the 810 Soldiers that were at the garrison, planning for medical support for upcoming missions while also developing the brigade’s medical advising mission for partner nations.
The position gave her a lot of freedom and the ability to engage with Soldiers and partner nations while going on missions. She went to five different countries during her time there, including medical advising missions to the Philippines and Nepal.
She was also the lead medical planner during a disaster response exercise in Kathmandu, Nepal, which had experienced several devastating earthquakes.
“It was definitely a challenge, but one that was very rewarding,” she said. “Being a nurse in [that brigade] was just an incredible experience for me, and one that I don’t think I would’ve gotten if I wasn’t in the Army.”
Being in the military and having those experiences with people from various backgrounds also helped her broaden her mind, she said.
“I think it made me more understanding and more compassionate,” she said, reflecting on her time in service. “I think being around more diverse people does that, and I think that’s one thing that has been very positive for me.”
After getting her chance to make an impact in the field, Spencer, now a major, got the opportunity to impact the next generation of Army nurses as a perioperative nurse instructor at the Army Trauma Training Course at Ryder Trauma Center in Miami.
The 15-day course provides deploying surgical teams with the opportunity to treat real trauma patients with wounds that are similar to those they might see in a deployed environment.
She teaches her students how to sterilize surgical instruments, how to care for patients throughout their procedure, and how to handle a mass casualty event.
“As good as it felt to save patients when I was deployed, I’d say it feels just as good knowing I’ve trained a team and made them better before they go downrange,” she explained.
With more than a decade in the Army, Spencer has lived out her childhood dream that started years ago in that Iowa hospital operating room. Now, as she looks to the future, she plans to keep following her Army path until retirement with her sights set on improving operational medical units through future concept development.
“There are so many opportunities in the Army Nurse Corps,” she said. “They’re continually making you a better nurse, a better clinician and putting you in leadership positions that you likely would not get on the civilian side.”
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