Nursing Profiles

LeAnn T.

Fort Collins, CO
Co-author, Chicken Soup for the Nurses Soul

I graduated as an LPN in 1968, back in the "good ol’ days," when LPNs did everything! I’ve worked nearly every area of health care in my 30-plus years and never dreamed I’d leave the bedside where I loved patient care. Then, in 1995, I wrote a book, "This Must Be My Brother," about my involvement in helping to rescue 300 babies during the Vietnam Orphan Airlift in 1975. After it was published, and an excerpt appeared in "Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul," I began writing other people’s stories to be included in eight more Chicken Soup books. That, and my devotion to 30 years of nursing, qualified me to co-author "Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul," released August 2001. Today, as a professional speaker, I share life-changing lessons learned from my airlift experience. With health care as my niche, I’m honored to nurture nurses, who are often so busy caring for others that they forget to care for themselves. I’ve been privileged to have my story in Newsweek Magazine’s Voices of the Century issue, and on PAX-TV’s "It’s a Miracle" show. I even met former President Gerald Ford. Yet there has been no greater privilege in my life than that as a bedside nurse.