Family sticks with mom’s advice to work at Texas Health Fort Worth
Ameri Clark, R.N., is a third-generation Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth nurse, literally walking some of the same corridors in Jones Tower today as her aunt and her great-aunt.
Ameri, who is just a month into her nurse residency, said she was inspired by her aunt by marriage, Gretchen Clark, M.S.N., RNC-OB, C-ONQS, NEA-BC, nurse manager of women’s services at Texas Health Fort Worth.
“She is a phenomenal woman. I aspire to be everything she is and more,” Ameri said. Her residency is in the neurological telemetry unit – the same physical space where Gretchen started her career, though then it was antepartum.
The family nursing legacy began with Gretchen’s mother, Kally Felts, R.N., a graduate in the 1980s of what was then Tarrant County Junior College. She started as a newborn nurse in Jones Tower, but her calling was the operating room. She completed operating room training and worked briefly in the OR at Texas Health Fort Worth before transferring to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Azle.
“When I was a teenager in the ’90s, I spent a couple of summers as a junior volunteer in Azle alongside Mom,” Gretchen said. “It was a special time for me.”
Her mother continued to work at Texas Health Azle until she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the early 2000s.
“I can still hear her words on my apartment answering machine,” Gretchen said. “‘I have cancer, but it’s going to be fine.’ Although Mom survived cancer, she was subsequently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and is in the final stages/hospice now.”
‘Go work at Harris’ (Texas Health Fort Worth)
Gretchen didn’t plan a nursing career at first.
“It wasn’t until after I had kids that the full picture of nursing as a career for myself came into focus,” she said. “Although my mom was a career inspiration, seeing how the oncology nurses at Texas Health Fort Worth cared for her during her inpatient chemo and radiation treatments also made an impact.
“My mom’s only advice? ‘Get your B.S.N. if you’re going to do it, then go work at Harris.’ I poked around and took some nursing prerequisites online while cutting up hot dogs and watching ‘The Wiggles’ with my toddlers. Once my youngest started pre-K, I started nursing school at the University of Texas at Arlington.”
She was a nurse extern in general surgery at Texas Health Fort Worth and passed up a lucrative OR externship at another system to follow her mother’s advice. After nursing school, she was hired at Texas Health Fort Worth as a women and infant’s resident and assigned to labor and delivery.
“I subsequently earned my master’s degree and saw a way to make a different kind of impact by being a leader,” Gretchen said. “It’s fun and fills me with great pride to lead some of the same nurses that taught me so much as a new grad.”
Passing down advice
She and Ameri were already close. Ameri moved in with her grandparents at 13 and was adopted by them at 17. Gretchen and her husband (Ameri’s uncle) were “right there if I needed them,” their sons like brothers to her.
When Ameri decided to become a nurse, Gretchen suggested she apply for Texas Health’s Patient Technician Apprentice program. Ameri worked as an apprentice while attending nursing school. She also used Texas Health Tuition Reimbursement.
Ameri said neurology is where she wants to be for now, but she eventually wants to work at the top of her scope at a psychiatric facility.
“I love neuro – helping patients with strokes and seizures,” she said. “There are so many stroke patients, and I want to be where I can benefit those who are mentally challenged and need emotional support.”
Because of challenges in her teens, she said, “I can relate to and empathize with a lot of people.” She sees stroke rehabilitation as “grieving for what you have lost but also looking forward to what you can gain.”
Gretchen is happy and proud of her niece.
“When Ameri asked me to pin her, it was super exciting to be welcoming her to the profession on the very stage where I was pinned by my mom 12 years earlier. And I love that she’s started her nursing career here, at Texas Health Fort Worth (‘Go work at Harris!’). I know she has a lot to offer and I can’t wait to see how she continues to grow.”
Jennifer Chavez, D.N.P., R.N., ACNP-BC, NEA-BC, CCRN, chief nursing officer at Texas Health Fort Worth, said, “The Clark family’s successes are a tribute to Texas Health’s strong culture of helping nurses do their life’s best work.”
