Megan Pittman and Lori Taylor are both professors in Union’s Nursing department. Yet they are much more than just co-workers, they are mother and daughter.
“We have a good relationship and I feel like we can have comradery and community among our faculty anyways, but having your mom there is a whole different thing. Where you can be like, ‘I need this thing and can you also pick up my kids and what are you doing to teach this thing and also what’s for dinner?’” Pittman, Assistant Professor of Nursing, said.
This is not something that everyone would be excited about, however, Pittman and Taylor love it.
“We know each other so well and we are not twins or anything but we are very similar,” Taylor, Associate Professor of Nursing, said.
You can see from simply being around them that they are not just mother and daughter, but they are truly best of friends; that is what makes them work well together.
“We are both wired creatively and so there have been a couple of things that we have done together that were really easy,” Taylor said. “There is not a second thought whether or not it will be done well.”
Taylor recalls a time when she and Pittman were asked to put together a presentation for the board of directors to honor the clinical partners. As she was describing the story Pittman had asked her mother several times what she was talking about. Then Taylor finally starts singing, “first I was afraid I was petrified” and they both broke out in laughter. Pittman and Taylor began reminiscing on this moment with many eye rolls and laughs.
“Asking someone else, I would have to explain everything, and for her, I was just like ‘hey we are going to do this thing’ and she knew what to do,” Taylor said.
For them working together has been something they have done Pittman’s whole life. They spent a lot of time together, as Taylor homeschooled her three children. She pushed them to continue on to college and do whatever they felt called to do since that was not her story.
“I wanted to go to med school,” Taylor said with a long pause holding her fresh chi latte a little tighter. “Basically my dad had ideas of what women and men should do.”
So, instead of pursuing what she felt called to do, she graduated with a degree in computer science and became a programmer for much of the eighties. It was not until her youngest son started taking college classes that she went back to school.
“I just think it was God’s way of redeeming that desire of my heart and opening that opportunity to go to nursing school,” Taylor said.
“And you did,” Pittman said with a hint of pride in her words.
One thing I loved about getting to sit down with Pittman and Taylor was watching their relationship. While talking or telling a story, they looked at one another and it was like I was hardly even there. They support one another in anything they do and are always standing there to help when needed.
“I know her strengths and weakness and she knows mine,” Taylor said. “There have been a lot of times where she or I have said I need somebody to do this right now and I know that it is not going to stress you out.”
Each can balance the other out and know that they can always count on each other.
“It’s really good to have another person who you really actually know who you can talk to,” Pittman said.
Both Taylor and Pittman now have their doctorate in nursing from Union. While they both love teaching and plan to continue to do so, they also continue to practice nursing once a week.
“When you stay in practice you are actively staying up with the next best practice and you are seeing [through] getting the recommendations, looking things up in order to actually treat patients,” said Taylor.
“We want to do it all,” added Pittman. “There is variety in the work that we do. Plus I think it helps the students.”
While they work together, practice together and live only a mile away from one another, every day they still want to do life together and that’s what makes them friends.
Photo by Madelyn Stadinger