Community Connection Newsletter

Summer, 2011

People Who Care:
Loving Her Job for 65 Years—and Counting

Having worked nearly nonstop at Alta Bates Summit for 65 years, with her last sick day in 1952, Elena Griffing chuckles when she admits that she still has active, on-the-job aspirations.

“I’d love to work another five years, and by then I’ll be 90!” says Elena, her characteristic charm and energy bubbling up as she speaks. “It’s been a privilege to work at this hospital. I’ve had so many unbelievable memories—they’ll last forever.”

Elena says she’s seen a lifetime’s worth of changes in the world of health care since she arrived as a wide-eyed 20-year-old for her first day at work at Alta Bates Community Hospital in April 1946. Her initial duties were as a secretary in the hospital lab, back in the day when frogs and rabbits were the state-of-the-art “devices” revealing positive pregnancy results. That was also the era when Alta Bates, R.N., the hospital’s legendary founder, was still around to make nightly visits to every patient’s bedside. “Her uniform was starched so heavily it could stand in a corner by itself, “ says Elena, who was warned by the no-nonsense Miss Bates about walking around on the job in high heels, which, incredibly, are Elena’s signature attire to this day.

Elena would go on to spend 25½ years providing administrative support at the lab, then put in 10 years with endocrinologist John Linfoot, M.D.; a short stint in Public Relations; and 22 years with Jerold Kaplan, M.D., at the Burn Center. (Along the way, she’s also made time for personal passions: She’s a Frank Sinatra devotee and a camellia connoisseur—with 119 varieties in her home garden and one named after her father.)

Nowadays, of course, Elena still logs in at Alta Bates Summit—currently as a patient relations representative, four days at week. Holly Colin, the medical center’s director of patient relations and risk management and Elena’s supervisor, describes her co-worker as “our goodwill ambassador. She has a joy for life and she gives that gift to everyone she meets.”

For her part, Elena simply describes her secret: “I’ve always been an enthusiastic, happy person, and I’m lucky to have a place I can’t wait to come to. Nobody has more fun than I do.”