CENTRE, Ala., June 7, 2023 – Few people can claim they worked in any one place for half a century, but Ann Martin has accomplished just that at Atrium Health Floyd Cherokee Medical Center.
Martin, a financial counselor, was honored by her teammates on Tuesday at the hospital, where she began working six days after graduating from vocational school when she was 18 years old.
Yolanda Miller, director of patient access, remembers first meeting Martin when Floyd began managing the hospital in 2018.
“I thought, if everybody here is like her, we got this in the bag,” Miller said. “She knew everybody, not just the people at the hospital. She is just a very kind, very loving individual.”
Martin refers to herself as a jack of all trades, but helping patients navigate the financial side of healthcare has been her biggest role.
“I have enjoyed helping the older people more than anything else. It makes you feel good to be able to help them. I try to solve their problems if I can. They’re not always happy when they come in, but I have learned that if you just listen to them, you can usually resolve it. I always want them to feel better by the time they leave,” she said.
Trudy Williams, pre-service manager at the hospital, was Martin’s manager for two years. She wiped away tears as she spoke about working with her.
“She was wonderful. She was always here, and I could always rely on her,” Williams said.
Kerry Sayre, a radiologic technologist at Cherokee, is close to reaching his 50-year anniversary at the hospital. He and Martin have been longtime friends.
“When we were first here, I would go visit her just to talk to her,” Sayre said, referring to Martin as his work wife. “She is so caring and compassionate. She is a wonderful person.”
About 10 years ago, Martin said they started referring her as “Miss Ann,” an address of both familiarity and respect often used in the South.
“I raised a lot of children,” she said of some of her fellow teammates. “I’m Dear Abby. Of course, I am older than everybody else now. So, they are like my children. I can just tell them ‘Now don’t do that.’ I raised a lot of them and love a lot of them. A lot of times they didn’t want to go to their moms, so they came to me. And I talk to them just like I would to one of mine.”