Tanta Hulsey worked in retail management for 10 years, and in January 2012, after
spending Christmas in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital with her grandfather,
she decided to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse.
“I had always wanted to be a nurse,” she said. “I graduated from Midland High School
in 1998, married early and by 2000, I had my first child. I went to work in the retail
industry in order to help pay the family bills. In 2012, my husband Tim and I built
an RV park on our property, and the income from that endeavor enabled me to stop working
in retail and become a full-time Midland College student.
“I actually attended Midland College for a very short time when I graduated from high
school, but I still had to take most of my prerequisite courses before I could be
accepted into the Associate Degree Nursing program. I finished the prerequisite courses
in the spring of 2013, and the following fall I was one of 35 students accepted into
the program.
“Nursing school was a great experience, but very rigorous, especially for a mother
of three children. Thankfully, my family was very supportive. In fact, the last
semester, I called my mother-in-law who lives in Georgia and told her I needed help.
She got on a plane in January 2015 and came to Midland to live with us until June
in order to help with ‘mom duties’ like cooking meals and carpooling. I was also
very fortunate in that I had Pell Grant funding and also received a donor-directed
scholarship to help pay for my textbooks. I think that I only paid approximately
$900 out of my pocket for the entire time I was at Midland College.”
Hulsey graduated from Midland College in May 2015, one day before her 35th birthday,
and began working as a registered nurse in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Midland
Memorial Hospital (MMH) in June of that same year.
Hulsey said that she was excited to become a nurse. She wanted to help people, rather
than manage them. However, her management skills would serve her well in the years
to follow, as she worked her way up to her current position as Critical Care Unit
Nurse Manager at Midland Memorial Hospital.
“I had never worked in a medical setting until I started working as a nurse in the
ICU,” Hulsey explained. “However, I didn’t have any doubts that I couldn’t handle
the job, and have not once regretted my decision to leave retail and go into nursing.
I love every aspect of ICU nursing, from caring for the patients to visiting with
their families and trying to make them as comfortable as possible. I also never dreamed
that one day I would hold a master’s degree!”
Hulsey has continued to work at MMH since that first day in June of 2015, except for
a brief, 6-month, stint has a case manager working for Hospice of Midland. In 2018,
she served as a temporary nurse house supervisor at MMH. She said that experience
opened her eyes to hospital administration and made her decide to go back to school
to obtain a bachelor’s degree. In April 2019, she was promoted to the position as
nighttime nurse manager in the Critical Care Unit, and in March 2020, she completed
a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.
“I received my bachelor’s degree from Grand Canyon University right at the beginning
of the COVID pandemic,” she said. “During the height of the pandemic, the hospital
had 48 ICU beds, including the regular 5th floor critical care unit, the 8th floor
where the Total Joint Center is located (because no one was having elective surgery
to have joint replacements) and four beds on the first floor in the Emergency Department.
We eventually even had beds on the 9th floor of the hospital. There were 24 critical
care nurses assigned to every shift, including FEMA nurses, travel nurses and state
nurses. I was one of a team of four nurse managers. Even though it was grueling,
I saw amazing nursing care during this time, and I’m proud to have been a part of
the critical care team during the pandemic.”
In April 2022, once the COVID pandemic had somewhat subsided, and a sense of normalcy
had returned to the hospital, Hulsey again enrolled in Grand Canyon University, this
time working toward a Master’s of Science degree in Nurse Administration, which she
obtained in November 2023. While she was working on both her bachelor’s and master’s
degrees, she continued to work fulltime at MMH.
Today, Hulsey is a licensed Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN) and is the only
Critical Care Nurse Manager at Midland Memorial Hospital. As such, she is responsible
for overseeing operations of 55 nurses and 8 ancillary staff.
Her husband Tim is retired from the Midland County Sheriff’s department and now works
as inventory manager for a directional drilling company. Her two daughters, Makenzie,
age 23, and Hannah, age 20, live in San Antonio and are following in their mother’s
footsteps attending nursing school through Alamo Colleges District. Her son Cason,
age 17, graduated a year early from Midland High School and works in the oil and gas
industry. Tanta and Tim raise Brahman cattle on family property near Coleman, Texas,
but they also enjoy traveling.
“Now that our children are grown and I’m not spending all my free time studying, Tim
and I spend our vacation time going to places we never had a chance to visit,” Hulsey
said. “I have lived on the same street in Midland County my entire life and never
ventured far from home. Believe it or not, I had never been to Las Vegas until just
about a year ago, and we plan to go back with our entire family in December. Tim
and I also have recently been to Cozumel and Jamaica, and our entire family spent
a week in South Padre. Other trips have included renting an Air B&B in Terlingua
and rafting on the Guadalupe River with friends I met when I was in the nursing program
at Midland College.
“I’m somewhat of a workaholic, but I’ve learned that it’s good to take time off and
‘unwind.’ In fact, I try to take a week off every quarter to either travel or get
home projects done.
“Life is good. I’m enjoying the career I always dreamed of having, and I’m able to
spend quality time with family and friends. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
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