Popular Nurse Retires After 33 Years With CVMC
September 1, 2021
SIERRA VISTA – Cindy Stevens is a familiar face for patients and staff.
For more than 33 years Stevens, has worked the floors and greeted the newest community members as a nurse on Canyon Vista Medical Center’s labor and delivery unit.
“Last week I was taking care of a patient, and the mom asked if I had worked here a long time," Stevens said. "I told her ‘yes,’ and she said that I helped deliver her daughter who was my patient, and now she's having her own baby. It’s the full circle of life. Now I’m taking care of the babies of the babies I delivered.”
“My mom was a nurse, and she was a huge inspiration to me,” Stevens said. “I wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
Stevens began her nursing career in Tucson before moving to northern Illinois. After five years away, she returned home and to a hospital that would later become her second family.
“Cindy has been a pillar of our unit for almost three decades,” Director of Labor and Delivery Dana Albalate said. “She has delivered countless babies and then delivered babies for those babies. She has touched so many lives in our community. Not only as a nurse but as a leader, teacher, mentor, colleague and dear friend.
“She has boundless energy and a deep love for Labor and Delivery. She has impacted the lives of every patient, family member, nurse, technician and provider who has every walked through the doors of Women and Children’s Services. Cindy may be retiring, but her legacy will go on in the work and passion she has inspired in generations of nurses.”
“It’s a miracle every time (a baby is born),” she said. “It’s one of the happiest times of (those parent’s) lives, and you get to be a part of that.”
Stevens hasn’t just had an impact on her patients, but on her coworkers as well.
“She has a unique ability to bring the best out of co-workers, and she is not afraid to ask ‘why’ when needed,” Stevens’ friend, Sharon Gaspardo, said. “She is truly one of the smartest people I have ever known.
Although she is leaving, her friends find comfort that she’s close by.
“I will miss her terribly, but I know she needs to be with her family away from the chaos of today’s nursing,” Stevens’ friend and coworker, Yssa Encinas, said. “I will need to get used to being without her. I wish her the best in her retirement, hope she relaxes, and enjoys life. I am comforted to know she is only a text message or phone call away.”