Lorraine Beasley’s plan was to work as a nurse for 12 months and then leave Bermuda to travel the world.

But she loved the job so much she stayed for 43 years.

The 65-year-old, a mother of three, will finally leave King Edward VII Memorial Hospital on Friday. She is anticipating the moment will be bittersweet.

“My time at Bermuda Hospitals Board has been an incredible journey, and as this particular journey now comes to a close, I can reflect on this experience and how I’ve grown,” she said.

“I started as an enthusiastic, single 22-year-old, and floated throughout the various wards and departments of KEMH to familiarise myself with the hospital.”

Nursing came easily to her. As a student in the UK, she received top marks throughout the region in 1969. Her father was so proud he wrote to The Royal Gazette to share her success. Her prize was £5 — enough to pay for her books for an entire year of study at King’s College Hospital in London.

Six weeks into the job at KEMH, Ms Beasley joined the fracture clinic. She ran it single-handedly for years, with “the invaluable help of some part-time Pink Ladies”.

During her 30-year stint in the department, she put casts on all three of her children. People still remember her from her time there.

“They come up and say, ‘I remember you from fracture clinic’.

“Invariably I say yes and [ask], ‘how is your leg or arm or the part of anatomy you broke?’.

“They are amazed I can remember. But little do they know that my memory for names is not quite so good.

“What I liked about the job is watching people get better.”

Ms Beasley derived a lot of enjoyment from talking to people she might not otherwise have met, she added.

“You form a bond with people when you put a cast on them because you’re talking and getting to know each other,” she said. “It’s not just like writing a prescription.

“I grew up with those families and when they see me they ask, ‘Nurse, are you still there?’.”

Years later she started working in the hyperbaric chamber after seeing how it saved lives.

“My brother, David, who is a fair bit younger than me, was cleaning out a tank and was overcome with carbon monoxide fumes,” she said.

“When they pulled him out of the tank he was blue. He was basically a goner.

“They called the ambulance and the person resuscitated him, but when he got to the hospital it was the hyperbaric chamber that saved his life.

“Later I heard on the radio they needed volunteers for the chamber. I had a full-time job and three young children but I thought, ‘I can do this. I can pay it forward’.”

Ms Beasley took a course offered by the Bermuda Sub Aqua Club and became a certified volunteer hyperbaric attendant.

She said she has always had a way of turning “lemons into lemonade”, and that this attitude has helped her to relish her responsibilities as patient advocate manager.

She took on the post despite preconceptions that she would dread hearing patients complain all day.

“When I was asked if I would take on the role I reluctantly agreed, but I decided early on that I was not going to let it get to me, that I would somehow rise above the complaints and indeed look at them as opportunities, and when I did that it all began to fall into place,” she said.

“Over the years I’ve learnt to be patient and to listen, really listen, and sometimes that is all a complainant really wants — someone to listen.

“I listen as long as they need me to, and apologise that for whatever reason we have not met their expectations of care. Often it’s almost as if you can feel some of their tension ease, and they are at least ready to hear you out.”

Next week she plans to “throw out her alarm clock” and sleep in a little later.

She also has several trips planned — one to a church conference in Newfoundland, another short vacation in Boston and then a retirement cruise with former classmates from the UK to New York.