Longtime nurse retires Published March 4, 2009 By Steve Pivnick 81st Medical Group Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, BILOXI, MISS. -- When Marguerite Jones left work Tuesday, she ended more than 36 years in federal service. Ms. Jones has been in nursing since completing training at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in the early 70s. A practical nurse, she is ending her service in the Air Force Medical Genetics Center at Keesler. She spent her entire Civil Service career with the medical center. However, she was employed at the then-Howard Memorial Hospital in Biloxi before coming to work for the Air Force. She's worked in the nursery, postpartum unit and neonatal intensive care unit. Long recognized for the instruction she provided new mothers as they learned to breastfeed their babies, Ms. Jones said, "I used to have the mothers lined up waiting for me." She also cleaned the babies immediately after birth. She provided both services when the Keesler's family birthing center opened in January 2007. Ms. Jones noted that she had the opportunity to twice work with one of the babies she brought into this world. Maj. (Dr.) Anne Gray, an obstetrician with the 81st Surgical Operations Squadron, first returned to her birthplace as an obstetrics and gynecology resident before Hurricane Katrina and later as a member of the staff. "I provided admission care immediately after Dr. Gray was delivered. This was one of the proudest experiences of my nursing career at the medical center. Now that she's here as a physician, she would deliver the babies and I'd take care of them," she said. Ms. Jones saw changes in maternity care over the years that evolved to babies "rooming in" with their mothers the entire hospital stay, except for exams, procedures, daily weighing and newborn screening. The medical center's Keesler Medical Center's family birthing center now offers a much more appealing venue with spacious, brighter accommodations, state-of-the art equipment and windows. New mothers even have private bathrooms. "When I first started, the moms delivered in labor and delivery and the babies were taken to the nursery where they stayed except for feedings," she recalled. "The mothers had to walk down to the nursery to get their babies." Asked how many births she has been involved with during her long career, Ms. Jones commented, "Since I worked so long in both the term nursery and NICU, I'd have to say hundreds." She added, "It feels like (I began work here) just yesterday; it just doesn't seem it's been so many years! I've met so many people. I knew a former Air Force surgeon general who trained here as an OB resident and at least two other residents who returned as medical group commander. There are several pediatricians currently on staff who I knew when they were interns." The long-time Biloxi resident is the proud mother of five and has 17 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Although she is retiring, Ms. Jones doesn't expect to cut her ties to the medical center. "After about a month, I plan to come back as a medical center volunteer," she remarked. "I'm just not a stay-at-home kind of a person."