Second acts: Nursing as a second career

Bow Criddle, RN

Then: Farmer, Firefighter, Plumber, Accountant
Now: RN, Senior Manager, Hematology/Oncology

Farmer. Firefighter. Plumber. Accountant. Every job Bow Criddle did was a prelude to becoming an oncology nurse and then a senior manager at Banner Good Samaritan Health Center in Phoenix. “All those jobs made me stronger as a nurse,” says Criddle, who has finally found his true calling helping others.

“I have a friend who had a very premature baby and I was amazed at the nurses’ skill, knowledge and compassion. When nothing more could be done, they made a quiet place where my friend could hold him in a rocking chair without tubes, and she was able to sing him a lullaby as he took his last breath,” says Criddle. “Nurses ensure that life and death are both handled with dignity. That’s really what attracted me to the profession. My prior job [as an accountant] was only about making money, and instead I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Growing up, Criddle worked grueling hours hauling grain on the family farm in southeastern Idaho and paid for college by building firelines in the wilderness. The intense physical labor of those jobs was perfect preparation for the long, demanding shifts in oncology, even when Criddle, a single parent, was cramming all of his work hours into three seemingly endless days so he could have more time with his son.

Criddle spent 12 years in oncology before taking on a senior management position in 2007. Nothing, he says, could have better prepared him for stepping into management than the nine years he spent in accounting. “All that paperwork, then I went into nursing and have more paperwork than ever!” As a VP for accounting in an acoustical engineering company that created the interiors for large commercial towers, Criddle got all the experience he needed to build budgets and oversee payrolls. “Really, I’m basically running my own little cost center now.” This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get out onto the floor. Being one of 10 children reinforced his innate tendency to be a caregiver as well as a manager. “I still visit with patients and make sure they’re getting everything they need,” says Criddle, who spends most of his time with the nurses on his team, assuring they have the tools they need to do a good job.

And the plumbing? Criddle says, half joking: “You’re working with the same types of things you do as a nurse—the T’s and valves—and what you’re doing is running things through tubes. Not unlike the human body.”

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