Natalie Casey's average day is more frenetic than the days of some high school students, according to her grandson.
"It's amazing. She can run circles around everyone else. I can't always keep up with her," said Max Fischer, 17 of McCandless.
UPMC Passavant this week honored Fischer's grandmother on the 60th anniversary of her nursing career. Casey, 81, of Ross is the oldest nurse on staff at the McCandless hospital, where she works five shifts a week.
"I like to be with people when they are sick. I like to give them compassion. That's why I keep dong this and do not want to retire," Casey said.
A lot has changed in the profession since 1948, the year Casey started working at the now-defunct St. John's Hospital in the North Side, where she attended nursing school for three years straight out of high school.
The era when she started working as a nurse was characterized by heavily starched white uniforms and angular white hats -- still part of Casey's trademark at UPMC Passavant.
"That's her look. She is a traditional nurse and is a bridge to the past in the very best way," said Elaine Wolford, a clinical director at the hospital. "She is a gifted nurse and is so comforting to her patients."
Casey is mother of four. One of her daughters, Sandy O'Leary of Waterford in Erie County, is a former nurse.
"Don't you love it that I am retired and my mother is still working? She loves what she does and would probably like to be here more hours than she is," O'Leary said.
A native of Brooklyn who still has more New York in her voice than Pittsburgh, Casey moved here at age 13 and graduated from the former Allegheny High School in the North Side. There she met her husband by making the first overture toward him.
"It was senior day, class party day or something. I was back to visit some teachers. She sees me and says, "Hey, Sarge, got a penny?" said Robert Casey, 83, who had just returned from the South Pacific, where he served in the Army Air Corps.
The couple celebrates their 60th anniversary next month.
Natalie Casey cannot remember wanting to be anything but a nurse -- except maybe performing on Broadway. She still tap dances and sings with the St. Teresa Players, a troupe connected with her church, St. Teresa of Avila in Ross.
"We do performances for senior citizens," said Casey, who volunteers as an usher at the Benedum and Byham theaters, Downtown.
Nursing is far different than it was just after World War II, changed not only by the entry of more men into the profession but by vastly different medications, technology-driven treatments and the shorter length of time most patients spend in the hospital, Casey said.
But what sticks out to Casey more than any other change is the amount of paperwork.
"There's just too much of it," she said. "Fifty years ago, we had much more time to talk to patients. The paperwork is really at the expense of spending time with patients, I think."
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