BROCKTON — Rocky Marciano administered 43 knockouts. Marvin Hagler had 52. They’ve got nothing on Dr. Scott Stewart and Nurse Elizabeth Brady.
The chief of anesthesiology and certified registered nurse anesthetist have knocked out more than 100,000 people in their 34 years working side-by-side at Good Samaritan Medical Center. That’s an estimate from the hospital’s president, Matthew Hesketh. It’s probably an undercount.
Dr. Scott Stewart and Nurse Brady both plan to retire this year.
Stewart said the trust that patients give them is a gift and privilege. “They put their lives in our hands,” he said. “They are completely vulnerable. They’re not breathing for their own. Their heart’s not pumping by itself. Their brain isn’t functioning on its own. None of this stuff is happening. We’re managing all of that.”
Brady has the gnarled fingers to prove it. Technology has changed so that machines now do most of the work. But for decades, she squeezed breathing bags by hand. “That’s why my hands are like this,” the 1971 Brockton High graduate said.
‘Old School’ – Look at the patient, not the monitor
Advances in medical devices only go so far, though. Brady recalls a recent episode where Scott had to remind a student about the limits of technology. “The other day he put a blanket over the monitor because the student was staring more at the monitor than the patient,” she said.
One of the legacies Stewart and Brady leave will be generations of anesthesiologists and CRNAs they taught, Hesketh said.
“We’re old school,” Stewart said. “We still do touch patients, listen to patients, talk to patients, rely on the patient and use monitors as a backup.”
North Side native had dreamed of designing dresses
Brady said she always wanted to be a dress designer. That wasn’t in the cards for the North Side native, who followed her oldest sister into nursing. Now that she’s retired, her four sewing machines may get more use. “I didn’t have the money to go to that kind of school but nursing was easy to get into and you could make good money,” she said. “I ended up going to nursing school and now 50 years later, it’s a passion.”
Before she became a knockout artist herself, Brady once received a second-place trophy from the hands of Hagler himself. She was a runner with the Brockton Striders in the late 1970s. “I ran a race and the only reason I came in second was because it was my first race and I didn’t know where the finish line was. So I let one girl pass and I got second place,” she said.
Scott has worked at Good Sam and its predecessor, Cardinal Cushing General Hospital, since 1990. He found an alignment between the hospital’s mission and his own. “I look at working here as the way I live out my faith,” said Scott, a Congregationalist working at the historically Catholic hospital.
Hospital fires and Y2K
When the two say they’ve been working side-by-side, they mean it literally. Shift after shift, year after year.
The pair recounted memorable moments they’ve shared. One came as the calendar flipped from Dec. 31, 1999 to Jan. 1, 2000, amid widespread “Y2K” fears that computers would stop working. Scott, then chief medical officer, volunteered to take anesthesia calls that night. A young man who’d been badly beaten up was brought in. Scott recalls calling in Brady, who came in wearing those big novelty “2000” glasses.
“She and I turned the millennium together. Side by side,” Stewart said.
Another flash-bulb moment came on May 23, 1994. Brady had just finished an appendectomy when a boiler fire forced the evacuation of the hospital. It was all hands on deck as employees and even bystanders pitched in to get 114 patients to safety. “All these people, the housekeeping people, especially, transferred all these people out of here, there was not one problem,” Brady said. “Nobody got killed. Nobody suffered.”
Almost 70 years combined experience at Good Sam
Anesthesiology is arguably an under-appreciated specialty. But Scott points out that it’s anesthesia teams that shoulder responsibility while their patients are under. “People think the risk of surgery is surgery,” Stewart said. “85% of the surgeries done in this country, the risk is the anesthesia.”
Each year, about 18,000 patients get anesthesia services at Good Sam. Soon that work will continue without Scott and Brady. “Losing almost 70 years combined experience in one fell swoop is challenging,” said Hesketh, whose hospital currently faces significant financial challenges. “It’s hard to put into words.”
Timeline of a three-decade partnership
- 1971: Elizabeth Brady graduates from Brockton High
- 1990: Dr. Scott Stewart joins Cardinal Cushing Hospital
- May 1994: Fire forces evacuation of the Cushing; Brady moves from Goddard Memorial Hospital to the Cushing
- October 1994: The Cushing merges with Goddard Memorial, is renamed Good Samaritan Medical Center
- 2010: Good Sam bought by Steward Health Care
- 2024: Stewart and Brady retire from Good Sam
Sources: Enterprise and Patriot Ledger archives
Send your news tips to reporter Chris Helms by email at CHelms@enterprisenews.com or connect on X at @HelmsNews.
