Nursing Director Combs featured
Registered Nurse Leigh Combs has spent a lot of time outside during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As nursing director at Green Country Behavioral Health, Combs greets clients in the parking lot, helps nurses take temperatures, makes sure “everyone is getting seen.”
Its one of many nursing tasks she takes on with a passion.
Bee pictures add cheer to Leigh Combs’ office and face mask. She is nursing director at Green Country Behavioral Health.
“Working as a nurse is something I’ve always desired to do,” Combs said. “I love getting to help people, I love seeing the progress they make, the work they put into their recovery.”
Combs said she grew up wanting to be a doctor or a nurse. She chose to major in psychology at Northeastern State University.
A couple of years after graduating from NSU, Combs began working as a clinician at GCBH. But that urge to be a nurse came back. She spent one year as an LPN and has been an RN for five years.
“I like helping people,” she said.
Combs loves the community atmosphere at her job. She said she likes taking pictures of GCBH staff events. She even made a desk calendar celebrating her supervisor group.
“It’s something fun,” she said. “We can look back and smile at things we did together.”
She also enjoys painting and doing creative things around her office. A collection of bee art cheers up one corner.
“It’s just amazing the things I’ve been able to collect,” she said.
When day is done, Combs retreats to her family farm west of Muskogee. She lives in the same house where she grew up. She said her parents moved out west in the 1970s and her dad raised cattle.
“It was what I was familiar with,” she said. “We had four wheelers and we fished. We liked to spend time outdoors.”
Interview and photos by Cathy Spaulding for feature: Well, I’m Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee in the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper Sunday, May 3, 2020