Rhett Butler
Unlike Clark Gable's character who delivered the infamous “frankly, I don't give a damn” line in Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler, RN cares deeply about many things, his patients in particular. In fact, Rhett Alan Butler has been an intensive care nurse in New York for ten years now.
In their 2005 November newsletter, the St. James Mercy Health System named Rhett Butler a VIP Award winner for his outstanding performance of critical care nursing duties in ICU. They also wrote, “Rhett is one of the most dedicated people we know. Not only is he a dedicated nurse, but he also shows his dedication to friends, and co-workers. He is dedicated to his patients, and they often praise him for the great care he has given them through the night. It takes a special person to work the night shift and Rhett is one of them. Rhett is also devoted to recycling and "cleaning" the planet which will make a better world for our children.”
As a boy growing up in Millbury, Mass, Butler’s heroes were the animals of the earth and he dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. He says, “I grew up more or less a loner. I spent a lot of time out in nature in the company of animals which is why I wanted to be a vet. Being a CNA and an RN has helped me become much more people oriented.”
In high school, Rhett ran cross-country track, co-edited the senior yearbook and was a member of the National Honor Society. Like every other child of the 50's and 60's, he was “weaned on rock and roll.” Musicians of the Vietnam War era had a big impact on his formative years, especially Phil Ochs. Rhett recalls, “I played 'My Life' endlessly when I broke up with my first high school girlfriend.” Rhett goes on to say, “I couldn't wait to see him (Ochs) perform at an anti-war protest concert at Cornell my freshman year. “Pleasures of the Harbor” still mesmerizes me with its tone and imagery.”
As with most Baby Boomers, you can pretty much label the stages of our lives by the music we listened to at the time. Dylan, CCR, Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, The Who, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Janis Joplin were a big deal to Butler and he was a huge Cat Stevens fan. Music has remained important to Rhett, but over the years, his range of favorites has become more eclectic and now includes everything but opera.
“Bob Seger, Melissa Etheridge, Bryan Adams. I got hooked on John Hiatt, another not quite mainstream artist, and can almost cry when I listen to "Have a Little Faith in Me".
Just when you think you have a pretty good picture of this RN man, you find out that away from ICU, he is most comfortable with a hammer in his hand. Although Rhett Butler's parents were divorced when he was still a baby, he must have inherited the carpentry genes from his father who left Bendix Corporation to start his own woodworking business.
No project is too daunting for Rhett. When Butler graduated from college, he moved into a chicken coop which he gradually expanded into a “real house.” During seven years of the construction phase, he lived without running water. Currently, Rhett resides in a brick Victorian built in the 1860's which, of course, he is remodeling.
“I've rewired the entire downstairs, am insulating and have got way too many other little remodeling projects ongoing at the moment. I have the horrible tendency to never quite finish one thing before I start another. Kinda like attention deficit disorder,” Rhett jokes, “but, in this kind of project, one thing tends to lead into another.”
Back at the hospital, Butler remains a “hands on” kind of guy, preferring bedside practice to seeking an advanced degree nursing career that focuses on management. “Too much theory and not enough reality.”
Rhett Butler was 40 years old when he decided to go to nursing school, but he proved his penchant for a job well done long before beginning his nursing career. Rhett operated his own dairy farm for eight years and consistently earned awards for milk production within his dairy co-op. One year, he was even named the highest quality producer for Dairylea. “I do take pride in that,” Butler admits.
Rhett Butler was once actually advised against becoming a nurse by a doctor who portrayed nurses to him as nothing more than glorified bed pan pushers, but media coverage about the nursing shortage got Butler's attention. The promise of steady work at good wages and the ability to get a job anywhere at anytime were tipping the scales, but it was the cold that cinched the deal. Dairy farming, it turned out, offered much less comfortable working conditions than nursing.
“I was operating my own dairy farm at the time, working 24/7 and making less than a dollar an hour when I figured it all out, freezing my butt on tractors spreading manure in the middle of blizzards. There had to be a better way to make a living.”
Divorced after 29 years of marriage Butler is currently in a committed relationship with an executive secretary at a community college. When asked if he has any regrets, Rhett replied, “Nursing is everything a job should be. Challenging. Rewarding. I have absolutely no regrets on choosing the profession. Personally, I wish I had been smart enough not to hurt the people I loved.”
What about being called Rhett Butler?
“It has been an interesting name to live with over the years. People tend to remember you, for better or worse.”
