Lynn B. Ellis, M.Ed, MS, CFNP, OCN
Peninsula Cancer Institute
Lynn Ellis has spent her entire career working in a field that many consider to be one of the most challenging: taking care of cancer patients, from the very youngest to the oldest. In the earliest years, she did so as a Registered Nurse. Today, she holds a Masters of Nursing with a Family Nurse Practitioner certification. And in January 2015, she celebrated her 10-year anniversary with Riverside Health System’s Peninsula Cancer Institute.
But she didn’t initially plan to pursue nursing. She received her first Bachelors degree in Psychology at Christopher Newport University, later earning a Masters in Counseling from the College of William and Mary. She liked her classes, but found it wasn’t clinical enough for her, so she enrolled in the nursing program at Norfolk State University, where she says, “I definitely found my niche.”
She likewise hadn’t planned to focus on cancer patients, but in 1992, when she began working in the Pediatrics department at the Medical College of Virginia, she found she really liked working with that population. “What attracted me when I began taking care of these very young hematology and oncology patients was that I was able to develop long-term relationships with them and their families,” she says. “The following year, I transferred to MCV’s Bone Marrow Transplant department, and I was able to spend months at a time with my patients. I loved it.”
In 1994, she relocated to Hampton Roads and began working in the Radiation Oncology department at Riverside Regional Medical Center, assisting patients who were undergoing radiation therapy and brachytherapy.
A little more than a year later, Ms. Ellis took a position with the Williamsburg office of Virginia Oncology Associates, administering chemotherapy to outpatients, providing patient education, assisting with crisis intervention and assisting the physicians with bone marrow biopsies and clinical trials. It was during her tenure at Virginia Oncology that she met Dr. Mark E. Ellis, a medical oncologist who she credits with eventually changing her career path. She worked with Dr. Ellis in both the Williamsburg and Hampton locations, and ultimately became the oncology nursing supervisor, before she decided to go back to school to become a family nurse practitioner.
While she pursued her CNFP certification, she worked part time as a case manager at Sentara Hampton General’s Women’s Imaging Center, assisting with breast biopsies, teaching clients about prevention, diagnosis and treatment modalities.
Certification in hand, she again strayed from her intended path: “I had planned to continue working for Virginia Oncology,” she says, “but Dr. Ellis was opening Riverside’s Peninsula Cancer Institute, and talked to me about working with him. I was trying to do what was best, and I felt that was my destined path.”
Ten years later, Lynn Ellis reflects on the loss of the doctor who was so much more than a mentor. “Dr. Ellis died four years ago, and I still miss him terribly. His patients do as well. But it was so beautiful to be right alongside him, watching him build the practice,” she says, adding, “We weren’t related, but since I shared both first and last names with his wife, it tended to confuse some people!”
As she celebrates her tenth anniversary at Peninsula Cancer Institute, she also reflects on the demands of her job and of the work she has chosen. “I’ve always felt that patients facing cancer are at the most vulnerable time in their lives,” she says, “and to be able to help them through that time is more than a privilege; it’s a gift. People ask me how I can work in oncology, it’s so sad – but I’ve never felt this is a sad environment. We see our heartaches, and some days we go home crying – but we also shed tears of joy when people get CT scans back that are improved. Those moments are priceless.”
