Nursing has always been a part of Lester Sutton’s life.
His mother, aunt and more were always taking care of people in hospitals, nursing homes and medical offices. It all led Sutton to become not only a nurse but a nurse practitioner who is able to take care of patients just like a medical doctor.
“I grew up around nurses,” Sutton said. “My mom has been a nurse for 40 plus years now. There was never any doubt what I was going to do. I knew I was going into medicine.”
Sutton started as a biology major. He picked nursing as it was easier to plug already completed classes into nursing. He also balanced Division I football at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut where he played cornerback and kick returner with nursing school. It was a challenge balancing his time.
“The classroom was easy to schedule,” Sutton said. “But both fought over priority between practice and clinicals.”
After nursing school Sutton started to care for patients on the floor of a northeast hospital. But taking care of medical and surgical patients wasn’t a big enough challenge so he transferred to ICU.
“I did critical care for nine years before going back to school,” Sutton said.
The seasoned nurse was accepted into the nurse anesthetist and nurse practitioner schools at Samford University. Sutton chose to be a nurse practitioner.
Now he is seeing patients at Tallassee Internal Medicine and still maintains his role as a hospitalist for Community Hospital. Sutton chose the nurse practitioner route after working as a registered nurse. He felt it was God’s path for him.
“I had a lot of nursing experience before I went back to school,” Sutton said. “I do think that that matters in terms of your knowledge base being a nurse practitioner.”
The nursing experience gave Sutton real world practice in a hospital setting. He took care of patients in the ICU and after surgery.
“The thing is that patients can't see what we have to go through in terms of school,” Sutton said.
He likes the rural setting of Tallassee. It is similar to Sutton’s part-time work when he was living up north.
“Aside from working at big trauma center hospitals, I've always had a connection with a community hospital,” Sutton said.
Sutton likes the connection patients have with small hospitals and the medical providers and staff that use them. He doesn’t feel like he is working on an island. Sutton also works in the Baptist system and uses those connections when patients need a higher level of care.
“Those connections end up benefiting the patient in the end,” Sutton said.
Sutton has been a CRNP for 15 years now. He’s not exactly sure what will happen in the future but is confident he will be doing something like he is doing now.
“I would do this if I wasn't even getting paid for it,” Sutton said. “I truly believe this is what God called me to do. If I was on a desert island somewhere, I'd be taking care of people.”
