Rebecca Tipton Bishop

"Rebecca Bishop was born at the old Pattie A. Clay Hospital in downtown Richmond, Kentucky to Alvin and Hazel Tipton. She grew up on Tipton Ridge and besides one year in Louisville is a life-long resident of our beautiful Estill County. Becky attended Berea College where she graduated in 1967 with a Master’s of Science in nursing. When she graduated from college she worked at Old Louisville General for one year before returning and starting a 43 year career at Marcum Wallace Memorial Hospital.

She started at Marcum Wallace on December 1, 1968 and the majority of her time there was spent as a nurse on the floor. She was also the Director of Nursing for a year or two during her tenure. She also served on the Ambulance Board for several years. Today’s nurses have specialized roles either on the floor with the inpatients or in the emergency room caring for emergency patients. In the past these clear cut roles were not the case. When Mrs. Bishop started her nursing career patients were in wards with 15 to 20 beds separated by curtains. A patient’s right to privacy was slightly less important than it is today. It was hard to keep things private with just a curtain around a patient’s bed. Mrs. Bishop has worked triage, delivered babies, and had all manner of medical adventures during her long career.

She spoke to me about how over the years your memories are full of various patients, ones that were chronically ill with disease and how you got to know your patients. These stories can be both happy and sad as death is a common part of working with the chronically ill. She mentioned one man who she cared for frequently during her year in Louisville with kidney disease. Another time at Marcum Wallace while sitting at the Nurses’ Station one other nurse on duty noticed a man coming down the hall with an “unusual neck tie” and asked Becky to take a look. As the gentleman got closer it was known that the “neck tie” was actually blood. The man had been shot in the chest and thanks to some speedy work from Mrs. Bishop, the other nurses working and Dr. Terry, he recovered fully.

One night while Becky was working the graveyard shift in the emergency room a call came over the scanner that a man was being brought in for treatment and she was halfway through taking the report from the EMS before she realized that the patient in question was the her father. She was able to assist in getting him settled before he passed away the next day. Many people shared how caring and kind Mrs. Bishop was to them during their time at Marcum Wallace Hospital. Kathy Samples nominated Mrs. Bishop for this award because of how comfortable and well treated she felt while under Mrs. Bishop’s care during the birth of her son, Jason. A good nurse can make all the difference in how a patient remembers their stay in a hospital and it seems that Mrs. Bishop was one of the great ones in that aspect.

An avid reader, Becky enjoys all sorts of novels and is frequently teased by her husband Jackie (of nearly 38 years) about needing to “get rid of “her sizable library. She also likes to keep her brain limber by doing crossword puzzles and has recently taken up quilting. Jackie and Becky have 2 daughters, Kim Gould and Pam Isaacs and 3 grandchildren: Jonathan, Noah and Marlie. After 43 years of work one might imagine that Mrs. Bishop would miss her busy life as a nurse but as she told me “I’ve rather enjoyed my retirement! So much more than I thought I would!”" - From Rebecca Bishop Estill County Hall of Honor Induction, 2011, As read on 10/19/20 at [1].