When Norma White, RN, turns in her scrubs and walks out of Texas Orthopedics, Sports & Rehabilitation Associates on Sept. 30, it won't just be the end of her tenure as director of surgery there — it will be the end of an era.

The 80-year old surgical nursing pioneer is retiring 60 years after becoming a nurse and 37 years after opening the first same-day surgery center in Texas (the nation's third and largest ASC at the time).

Ms. White, whose storied career is chronicled in an Austin American-Statesman profile, served as administrator of Bailey Square Surgery Center in Austin from the day it opened in 1973 until her first attempt at retirement in 1994. That's a pretty amazing feat when you consider that nearly 60% of respondents to an OSM InstaPoll last year estimated that most surgical facility managers experience career "burnout" in 2 to 4 years.

Not Ms. White. That first retirement didn't stick; she went on to help North Austin Medical Center open its day surgery center in 1994 and took the position of director of surgery at Texas Orthopedics, Sports & Rehabilitation Associates in 2001, at the age of 71. She's been putting in 70-hour weeks ever since, arriving at the center around 3:30 a.m. and sometimes staying until 5 p.m. "She lives and breathes it, and she's one of those people who has to be working," Tom Wolfe, CEO of Texas Orthopedics, tells the American-Statesman.

Before becoming a nationally known expert in outpatient surgery, Ms. White served as director of operating and recovery rooms at Austin's Brackenridge Hospital (now University Medical Center Brackenridge). In 1960 the hospital tapped her to head its new intensive care unit — the first in Austin.

After opening Bailey Square in 1973, Ms. White helped fledgling ASCs get off the ground in other cities, and in 1975 was called to Washington to advise the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee set payment rates for surgery centers nationwide. In hindsight, Ms. White tells the American-Statesman, "I would have set those rates a little higher."

Despite false starts in the past, Ms. White says she's ready to retire for good now, spend time with her family, go shopping and maybe even sleep in past her current 1:30 a.m. wake-up time.

Irene Tsikitas

Photo: Kelly West /AMERICAN-STATESMAN

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