Congratulations to Rita Ford and Brandie Christian, Northside’s 2023 Celebrating Nurses Top 10 Honorees!
The two nurses received their Nurse Excellence Awards from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at its annual Celebrating Nurses Awards event on May 12. Each year, the event recognizes Atlanta’s top nurses and the positive impacts they make in our lives and communities.
Rita Ford is a critical care nurse at Northside Gwinnett. She was nominated by a family who considers her "an angel with a stethoscope."
Ford is a native Nigerian, and she moved to the U.S. with her family at 24 years old. Her childhood dream was always to become a nurse.
“When my mother was taking us to the hospital, all I wanted to see was the nurses,” Ford told the AJC. “Back then, they would put on a white dress and a white hat. To me, that was the best profession in this world.”
For two years, Rita worked as a nursing assistant before her brother, who also pursued nursing, convinced her to follow her dreams.
After giving birth to a preterm baby at Northside, she made up her mind that she wanted to work in a hospital. She says, “Nursing is a calling, not just a profession."
She’s been at Northside for three years.
Watch Rita's story here:
Brandie Christian is a nurse supervisor on the orthopedic floor, also at Northside Gwinnett. Brandie made a career switch to nursing after realizing she really wanted to make a difference in patient care.
She worked as a corporate accountant for 15 years before returning to school to finish her degree. She recalled regretting not following her dreams regularly.
“Every time a family would go into the hospital, that’s where my heart was. That’s where I wanted to be,” Brandie said in an AJC article.
At the age of 8, her son was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, and as he spent two months in the hospital — she kept wishing she had finished her nursing degree.
Today, Brandie has been a Northside Gwinnett nurse for five years.
Watch her story here:
Read more about the AJC Celebrating Nurses Awards and all of this year's honorees.
