Luz Remedios ("Remy") Tolentino, RN, MSN, Baylor's chief nurse: a conversation with the editor. Interview by William Clifford Roberts.

BUMC PROCEEDINGS 2000;13:169–174 was born in Fort Ord, California, outside of Monterey. My dad was in the US Army. My parents married in the Philippines, had 2 daughters there, and then came to the USA. Shortly thereafter I was born. WCR: How many siblings do you have? LRT: I have 3 sisters who are living. Another sister died at age 18. WCR: You are the next to the youngest? LRT: I am the middle child of 5 daughters. WCR: You must have lived in a lot of different places. LRT: Yes. Up and down the West Coast—Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California—and then Texas. My dad’s last assignment was Fort Bliss, Texas. From middle school to high school, I lived in El Paso. My mother still lives there. WCR: How did you get into nursing? LRT: I was always interested in helping people and in health care. In the summer between my seventh and eighth grades, my mom said, “Remy, would you like to volunteer at the army hospital?” She enrolled me as a Red Cross volunteer when I was 12 years old. It was a wonderful experience because they let me become involved in virtually whatever I was interested in. I helped out in the outpatient clinics, radiology, central supply, etc. The surgeons invited me into the operating room to observe procedures. The first surgery I observed was the excision of a brain tumor in a 13-year-old child. They let me stand on a stool behind the surgeon and observe. I also observed a cesarean section and, later, an autopsy of a patient who had died from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. These experiences stirred my interest in health care even more. In high school I took all the advanced science courses, but I still had not decided my future. I Luz Remedios (“Remy”) Tolentino, RN, MSN, Baylor’s chief nurse: a conversation with the editor