Mary Bohn Retires From a 48-Year Nursing Career

Mary Bohn, RN, guides us down the hall, chatting as we go amongst the hustle and bustle of a typical day at Milbank Area Hospital Avera. Her calm efficiency occasionally gives way to a bubble of enthusiasm, and it’s easy to see why patients have felt comforted and safe in her care for over 48 years.  “What sets her apart is the way she cared — not just with clinical excellence, but with deep compassion,” says Natalie Gauer, administrator at the hospital. “It’s a legacy few can match.”

It’s her final shift of being a nurse, and it’s an honor to sit with her and look back on a career that began when nurses took temperatures using mercury thermometers, counted pulses with the second-hand of a wristwatch, and recorded vital signs on a clipboard – sometimes using a three-colored pen to indicate the different duty periods. 

Her title at the clinic is nurse manager of Avera Medical Group -Milbank, and every day has brought something new, proving Florence Nightingale’s theory, when nearly 200 years ago she said, “Nursing is a progressive art and standing still means going backwards.” Mary has moved from white-capped uniforms and re-sterilized syringes  to unisex scrubs and digital charts, evolving with the profession as she went. “When I started, we didn’t even have pulse oximeters,” Mary notes. “Now you just clip one on and go. The technology has changed so much, but the heart of nursing hasn’t.”

Mary has remained grounded in the people she has served and the team she has worked alongside. “I always tried to treat my patients like they are family, and I’ll miss my coworkers the most—we’ve been through so much together.”

She remembers her first job in Milbank at St. Williams, where she started as an aide and began her Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) training. She recalls, “We all wore white – head to toe. Everyone wore dresses and caps. I remember I was wearing a split-skirt uniform. The nuns looked twice at me. Then they said, ‘I guess it looks like a dress, so we will let you wear it.’ By the time I graduated from LPN school in 1979,I was wearing a uniform with pants – most nurses did.”

When she finished her LPN studies, she received her cap. The iconic starched, white nurse’s cap. ”Capping was a big deal,” she recalls. “Back in the day, every nursing school had a different style of cap. When you graduated, you got stripes to put on it.”

She says until about five years ago she had always worn something white to work. “I usually had at least white shoes. Nearly everyone wears tennis shoes now because they can be laced up for support. ”With scrubs also taking over, she says it has gotten much more difficult to determine who is a nurse. That means the entire staff must always do their best to take good care of everyone.” 

According to Gauer, this concept is something Mary not only preached, but she also  practiced. “Every patient, every time, received Mary’s full heart, and it made a difference we’ll never forget. She brought not only skill to her work, but joy, warmth, and an authenticity that made both patients and colleagues feel instantly at ease.”

It’s something Mary learned at her mother’s knee. Mary’s path in nursing began when she was a nurse’s aide at the Catholic hospital in Mitchell where she grew up, but inspiration was all around her.  Her mother was a nurse, and the choice to work in healthcare ran as deep as the roots of the trees on her family’s farm – her aunt, her sister, and three cousins were also involved in one way or another. “It’s in my blood,” Mary says. “I remember reading my mom’s orthopedic surgery magazines when I was in high school and thinking how cool it all was.” 

She met Cindy Alexander on her first day on the job as a nurse at St. William’s. The nuns managed the nursing care at St. William’s, but Cindy was a supervisor, and a step underneath sister Martha, who was the director of nursing. “Cindy and I worked together the first day and it went really good! The second day Cindy wasn’t there, so I was on my own. She mentored me a lot in those first years, though.” Mary says. Cindy has remained a good friend and still volunteers at the hospital and clinic. “Sister Martha helped me, too, and made things a lot less scary.” 

“In fact, it was always kind of funny,” Mary says. “When I first worked as a nurse’s aide at St Bernard’s Hospital. I was a new face and only 19. Everyone would ask, ‘Who do you belong to? What family do you belong to?’ I catch myself doing the same thing now,” she says and laughs. “Anyway, I would tell them I didn’t grow up here, but my husband is Harlan Bohn. He’s Dwayne Bohn’s oldest. They would ask, ‘Wasn’t your mother-in-law a Reiners?’.” When Mary would answer,”Yes”  they could figure out where she fit in, and everything was right with the world again.

The nuns were also RNs and even did the (baby) deliveries back then. Mary says Sister Martha was the ultimate role model of dedication. “She would be up all night with a delivery and then in the morning she would go to work for at least a half  day – if  not a whole day –  either on the floor with us as a nurse or busy with her other duties. Sister Martha always said she would not lie down unless she had permission – she was probably in her 50s then.” 

 In 2003, Mary earned her RN degree. She took her classes in what was then regarded as a nontraditional way, but it turns out Mary was just ahead of her time. She took  distance learning classes from a college in New York and completed her clinicals in Madison, Wisconsin. The online option for nurses education is still going strong and continues to grow in popularity.

 “Experience makes all the difference,” Mary says and recounts the first morning when she walked down the hallway as an aide. “Sister Loretta stepped out from behind the nurse’s station and said, “Good morning Mrs. Bohn.’ At 19, I thought she was talking to my mother-in-law. I was so young.” She laughs. “A lot has happened.“ Eventually, Mary began mentoring the younger nurses, and she took pride in showing them the way. “I’m excited about the new nurses coming in. They’re sharp,” she says. “And someone’s got to take care of me someday!”

Mary makes light of her success as a mentor, but Gauer says, “As a nurse manager, Mary mentored and guided with the same grace and steadiness she gave her patients. Her leadership was never loud, but always strong. She led by example, showing that kindness, commitment, and professionalism go hand-in-hand in healthcare.”

“We’ve had a really good group of nurses, and I was lucky to work with some very good physicians,” Mary explains.  It wasn’t exactly like St. Elsewhere – one of the few, but possibly her favorite TV show based on a hospital that she watched back in the 80s.  “Many of us were in our 20s and 30s,though. We got through a lot of things together. I really value my coworkers. Over the years we’ve managed to have a lot of laughs, too.”

One experience they all went through as a team was moving into the new hospital-clinic. ”It was really something packing up that old clinic.  We didn’t realize how much we were literally sitting on top of each other until we got into the new clinic here. When we moved, we closed at noon on a Thursday and opened in the new space on Saturday.”  They were able to pack some things ahead of time, and some had to be done at the very last minute. “Everybody pitched in,” she says. “We all packed and got our totes ready to be hauled out. It was funny, because when we were halfway done, one of the movers said, ‘You guys must really want to get out of here. You’re meeting us at the door and taking the totes right out of our hands!’”

Mary says she finds the most challenging part of being a nurse is doing things like background work, prior authorization for tests, things like that. “It’s a lot of paperwork! Important. But it doesn’t make the patient feel better.” She also feels the cost of medication and how many people struggle with the cost to be a challenge. “The best part of nursing is, of course, the patients,” she says. “I like to make people feel better…whether  it’s answering questions, being their advocate, or just being there for them.” 

A huge transformation she has witnessed over nearly five decades is the development of numerous new procedures. Another significant, but less visible, change is the astounding number of medications that have been introduced – many  in the last five years.  She recalls when her husband Harlan was in the hospital. His nurses were reviewing his medications, and Mary told them, “When I started as a nurse, only one on this entire list was available.”

AI is also an innovation that is infiltrating the medical profession along with every other  industry. It’s now being used in some healthcare settings to analyze images – particularly in radiology and pathology, to create treatment plans and tailor drug recommendations, to automate administrative tasks, and to predict potential health issues and more. Mary says, “I haven’t seen it a lot, but it will be interesting to see what happens and what it replaces.”

“People think there is always a fix or a cure, but there isn’t,” says Mary. Florence Nightingale stated it like this: “What nursing has to do is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him.” 

“Always be open to change because change happens a lot in this career,” she reminds the new nurses.  She also advises, ”Probably the best thing you can do is to be genuine and let your patients know that you really truly care about them and you are trying to help them. You have to do what God feels is right. Sometimes people want everything done, when maybe everything that can be done isn’t always the best choice. Let God and let go!”