Sr. Elaine Davia, Nurse Practitioner

A passion for caring for those most in need
Growing up as the second oldest of eight children in Virginia, Sr. Elaine Davia says she knew since she was just 5 or 6 years old that she wanted to be a nurse and take care of others. When she attended Catholic school for a few years, she became interested in the life of a sister and wondered if that was the direction her life should take. As a senior in public high school, the guidance counselor asked Sr. Elaine what she intended to do with her life. Her answer? "I know I want to be a nurse and I think I want to be a sister." While the counselor could outline the education needed to become a nurse and the many possibilities that career could offer, she wasn't able to provide much guidance for Sr. Elaine about becoming a religious sister.

Fortunately, a priest who was a friend of the family was there to help. "I know just the community for you," he told Sr. Elaine. He had been cared for by the Sisters of Bon Secours through our home healthcare ministry in Richmond, Virginia. He thought our focus on healthcare would offer an ideal way for Sr. Elaine to combine the paths she wanted to follow.

A personal call to caring for the poor
Sr. Elaine says she always felt a personal call to care for the poor. Her work as a nurse practitioner provided many opportunities to live that call. Her training as a nurse practitioner had focused on community outreach, that is going into urban and rural areas and bringing healthcare and health education to the people who lived there. For nine years, she was the director of a mobile health clinic based in Richmond. She traveled to rural areas, working with families struggling to get by on a minimum wage paycheck or welfare, providing them with much needed care they would not otherwise have access to.

"As a nurse practitioner, my focus is not only on patients' medical illnesses but also on helping them to stay healthy. I do a lot of teaching so they can learn to take better care of themselves and their children. I try to offer them keys to a healthier life," Sr. Elaine explains.

She also started a family clinic in Portsmouth, Virginia to serve that area's poor. It was a cooperative effort with local churches and a private foundation. "This is the type of work I truly love to do," she says. "Working with the poor and marginalized is the Christian call. They don't have the choices that those with more money do. You need a stick-to-itiveness to help people see and understand all their options. The work can be very challenging. As someone said to me once, ‘If it was easy, wouldn't it have been done already?'"

Moving out of her comfort zone
Sr. Elaine enjoyed her work and life in Portsmouth and says she felt very comfortable there. Perhaps a bit too comfortable. After a Call to Action retreat, she felt it was time to make a change. "The retreat reminded me of my inner call. So I made the decision to move to a new ministry," she notes.

That decision led her to Arcadia in southwest Florida, the home of many migrant farm workers from Mexico and Central America. Because many of the workers had not entered the U.S. legally, they were afraid to go to the local hospital for care and did not have money or insurance to seek care at a doctor's office. They often went without preventive care and many minor illnesses and injuries were left untreated until they became major ones that demanded emergency care.

She gathered members of the farm worker community together to ask them what kind of health services they most needed and learned that dental care and access to walk-in care in the evenings and on Saturdays when they were not working were the most urgent needs. As clinical manager of what came to be known as the Bon Secours Clinica de Ayuda Health Center, Sr. Elaine and her staff spent long days and evenings caring for patients, helping them connect to the health and social services they needed. "There were a lot of faith moments with patients, staff and volunteers for me," she adds. "I shared their lives and struggles and they were Christ for me in words and action. I was especially moved by their trust in me."

One still vibrant memory from her seven years working in Arcadia is of a young mother who suffered a miscarriage and continued to experience excruciating abdominal pain. There was no physical cause for her pain, but after talking with the young woman, Sr. Elaine discovered that its root was the void left by the baby who died before birth. The mother worried about where her baby was now.

Sr. Elaine wrote her a "prescription" and told her to take it to her pastor. The prescription asked the pastor to perform a formal blessing for the baby who died. The priest preformed a mass and invited all the family and friends to come. After this formal recognition of the baby and the chance to mourn the loss publicly, the young mother's stomach pain ended. "Discovering this need and sharing that experience with the family was a very powerful spiritual moment for me," Sr. Elaine says quietly.

Following God's call to a new challenge
Though her training and her first love are medicine, Sr. Elaine has also served in other fields. In 1983, the Congregation asked her to become the Vocation Director for the Province and to live at the Provincial House in Marriottsville, Maryland. Though that might seem like a radically new direction for her life, Sr. Elaine found many similarities between her work in healthcare and her work helping women understand what God was calling them to do with their lives. "It is still a way of helping people, of guiding them during an exciting but often confusing time of their lives," she notes. She worked as Vocation Director for nine years before returning to hands-on healthcare.

Sr. Elaine's path is changing once again. She recently moved back to the Provincial House from her seven years in Arcadia to become the Bon Secours Formation Director, a ministry that offers new challenges and rewards. "I lived on my own in Florida, so returning to live with a community of sisters is wonderful," she says. "If you are interested in learning more about the Sisters of Bon Secours and discovering whether you are called to this life, I heartily recommend you come and spend time with us. The best way for you to experience this life is to be with us, listen as we share experiences, and pray with us. We express our faith and charism through living it."

She adds that sometimes women raise the concern they are not perfect enough for religious life. Her answer comes with a welcoming smile. "We aren't looking for perfect people. None of us thinks we are qualified when we begin and we certainly aren't perfect now. We grow into who we are and I am still growing into what it means to be a Christian and a sister."

She invites every woman who wants to learn more about the life of a Sister of Bon Secours, to join her and the sisters she shares her life with for one or more of the Come and See vocation discernment weekends we host each year. "It's a wonderful first step. You'll come home with lots of information and lots to think about and have the chance to meet sisters and other women who are discerning if they are called to the life of a sister."

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