UAB St. Vincent’s Birmingham labor and delivery nurse Susie Hooks retired in February after a 46-year career, leaving behind a legacy measured not only in years of service but also in the generations of families that began their lives in her care.
Hooks started her journey at the hospital in fall 1979 as a student in its nursing school. Within a year, she was working in the perinatal area as a nursing assistant and unit secretary. What began as a calling to care for others grew into a lifelong career dedicated entirely to mothers and babies.
A deep sense of pride
Hooks traces her heart for nursing back to caring for her father during a long illness. While she doesn’t recall the exact moment she decided to become a nurse, she remembers always knowing where she belonged. “I knew from the start that I was meant to care for moms and babies,” she said.
After graduation, Hooks worked in the Newborn and Intermediate Care Nursery before moving through the Postpartum, Mother-Infant, and Labor & Delivery units. For two decades, she did it all. But at one point in her career, she paused to reflect.
“I sat down one day and asked myself when I was the happiest,” she recalled. “I realized I loved the moms and babies after delivering.”
That clarity shaped the rest of her career, through thousands of births. Hooks carried a deep sense of pride in the hospital she has always called home.
“I have always been so proud to be a nurse at St. Vincent’s,” she said. “I’m proud of it being the first hospital in Birmingham, producing the first RN in the state – all the firsts that St. Vincent’s accomplished. St. Vincent’s has been and will always be a big part of my heart. I love this hospital.”
Special connection
Over nearly five decades, Hooks didn’t just care for babies – she cared for generations. Few stories capture that better than the one she shared with fellow labor and delivery nurse Brenna Tenney.
Several months into working together in the birth suites, Tenney made a discovery at her parents’ home while flipping through old photo albums. Curious to see if she recognized any familiar faces in the pictures from the day she was born, she paused when she spotted one nurse in particular.
“I asked my mom if she remembered her name,” Tenney said. “She said it was Susie.”
The realization instantly clicked. She snapped photos of the album and brought them to work the next time she shared a shift with Hooks.
“It was such a full-circle moment,” Tenney said. “It was pretty neat getting to work alongside the same nurse who helped bring me into the world 30 years before. It was special getting to care for new moms and babies with the same person who cared for my mom and me when we were a new mom and baby.”
For Hooks, those moments are the ones she treasured most.
“I love when someone tells me I took care of them,” she said. “I actually took care of Dr. Sanders (UAB St. Vincent’s Birmingham OB/GYN physician Lucy Sanders, M.D.) when she was born, too. I love seeing the tradition continue. I feel like I have a special connection with them.”
Tenney says that Hooks’ presence will be irreplaceable.
“Susie was one of a kind and definitely left her mark,” she said. “She will be missed by her ‘birth suites sisters.’”