The air was thick with urgency.
A man with cardiac arrest was on his way via ambulance.
She heard the sounds of the ambulance wailing.
She took a quick breath in and out.
She was long prepared, as all of her colleagues were.
It’s what Medical Terminology and Health Science teacher Laura Stubblefield had trained for as an ERT (emergency room technician).
“Everybody is in there ready to do their job,” Stubblefield said. “We all knew what our job was. We don’t have time to feel nervous or scared, we’re just ready. Everyone knows it’s coming in because you’re in contact with the ambulance. It was an emergency. A big emergency, and thankfully, he survived.”
For Stubblefield, medicine wasn’t her first choice. Not even second. After graduating from Baylor, Stubblefied eventually found herself in Temple working at Dillards.
“I worked very long hours,” Stubblefield said. “When I was off, there was nothing to do in Temple. I had nothing to do, so I started volunteering at the regional hospital across the street.”
Stubblefield’s introduction to medicine turned out to be her life’s calling. While she was volunteering at Scott and White, she had friends that got her into shadowing in the ER, and there she talked to the receptionists that got her to do ENT certifications.
“I thought it was awesome! I rode the ambulance out of Waco,” Stubblefield said. “I did great and I loved it. They said, ‘You need to go back to school and do this!’ And I said no, I don’t want to because I already paid for my education, and I don’t want to incur more debt. They said, well ‘what if we open some doors for u?’ And that’s exactly what they did.”
Stubblefield’s friends truly did open doors. Doors that led her straight to Texas A&M University. She studied Biomedical Sciences while working at Dillards. There was a woman, who commonly shopped at her place of work, who introduced her to someone that furthered her love for medicine.
“She said ‘You need to meet my husband.’ And I’m like why? That doesn’t sound right. And she says, ‘He sits on the board of admissions of A&M Medical school and he would love to meet you.’ And so he did,” Stubblefield said.
Stubblefield’s passion to pursue a career in Health Science was further nurtured by Dr. JTL Mcnew, clinical professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine who gave her the best of opportunities.
“He was awesome to me and all the other kids. He had a practice, and he would call me and say ‘If you’re not in class or you’re not working, you’re in my practice.’ And I saw things and experienced things with patients,” Stubblefield said. “If there was a baby coming he’d call me, and he’d say ‘Meet me at the hospital, we’re delivering a baby.’ And he just opened every door for me.”
From cardiac arrest to the birth of a baby, Stubblefield has seen it all in the emergency room, and it’s this experience that catches the eye of colleague Regina Booth.
“I feel like she’s more of a hands on teacher. It’s not that she just teaches, you know, medical jargon,” Booth said. “She cares about you as an individual student. And where you’re heading for your future. She doesn’t just teach the subject; she cares about your future.”
School nurse Carolina Craft believes having experience working in an emergency room is an important background for teaching health classes.
“In the ER setting, you can encounter a lot of different situations that you only see in textbooks,” Craft said. “That way, you’d know, and you’d have first hand experience. And you’d know how to work under pressure. Just how to be a first responder.”
Stubblefield’s students grow up to be anything from dermatologists to neurologists.
“There’s many things you can do in the field, and we’re living longer, and we have more people that need care for a lot longer,” Stubblefield said. “I live vicariously through my students. You can be anything.”
