We'll do a mic check. Sure. 1234-5678 910. I do.

1234-5678 910 sounds good.

Sure does.

I might be too close.

No, the closer the better.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. The closer the better. And if you want to scoot in, just get comfortable.

Good.

All right, I'll pull this back.

And.

Good job. How are you today?

I'm good. Good.

Can you please share your name and a little bit about yourself?

Sure. I'm Linda Ratter. I've been a nurse for, let's see, since 1980, so that's, I think, 44 years. I worked in hospitals for quite a while, and then in 2004, discovered parish nursing, which has now become faith community nursing. It's being a nurse in a church or churches, and so I've done that since 2004. So that's 20 years. Right now, I'm on the northwest side of Milwaukee at three catholic churches. I'm trying to semi retire, so I work three days a week.

I teach a lot of the classes that we're going to be talking about and do home visits, visit sick and shut ins, things like that.

Okay. How do you like nursing?

I love nursing. I would tell anyone to be a nurse because I'm 67 years old and I can still be a nurse. I mean, there are ways to be a nurse for a long time.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Are you from Milwaukee?

No.

No. Where are you from?

I'm originally from two rivers.

Okay.

It's right up north, about 90 miles north, right along Lake Michigan. Our nickname is the coolest spot in Wisconsin.

Okay. Coolest spot.

Not cool as in neat or, you know, cool like cold? Yes, cool.

Frigid.

Okay, I got you.

When did you get here?

So I came to Milwaukee in 2004. Otherwise, I had spent a lot of my nursing career in Cheboygan, Wisconsin.

What side of town did you grow up on? Or were you kind of working in right now when you first came here in 2004?

Well, when I came here, my first parish nurse position was at Cross Lutheran church, which is on 16th and walnut, and I was there until the end of 2022.

Okay. Oh, that was a long time.

I did 18 years there. It's hard work, and as you get older, you know, you don't want to work quite as hard. And also, you need volunteers. You need good helpers. You need. And that was hard sometimes. So I just. I wanted to still keep working because I love the teaching and I love running programs, but I had to find out how to do it in a different way.

Right. Makes sense. Can you share your journey facilitating health programs for older adults. And what motivates you in this role?

Yeah, so I was trying to think about that this morning, because I was sure you would have ask me when I started doing all this. I have to think that I started doing it soon after I started the faith community role. So I would think 2004, 2005, something like that. So 15 ish years, almost 20 years, maybe doing this, too. There probably were not as many classes at the time as far as the opportunity to learn to be a preceptor for the classes. I certainly always had people who wanted to attend the classes, though.

Was it something about older adults that kind of drew you, as opposed to, like, other groups?

Well, we didn't just market it to older adults.

Okay.