Nyla Cauthern — Looking Back to 1958

On February 2, 1958, nurse-anesthetist Nyla Cauthern put on her crisp, starched uniform and prepared to welcome the public to the newly opened Rhea County Hospital. She was among the hospital’s first employees and helped put the finishing touches on the facility before its doors opened. For Rhea County, the new hospital represented an important milestone—before it was built, residents often had to travel outside the county for medical treatment, and babies were still commonly delivered at home.

The original hospital was modest by today’s standards: a 24,000-square-foot building with 39 inpatient beds, an emergency room, two operating rooms, X-ray and laboratory facilities, and eight bassinets in the delivery room. Cauthern worked as both a nurse and anesthetist and remembered the hospital as a small, close-knit place where the staff delivered babies, performed surgeries, and cared for their neighbors. Nearly half a century later, she could still remember her very first surgical patient—a mechanic from a local automobile dealership whom she recalled with great fondness.

After leaving Rhea County for a time to live in Georgia and raise a family, Cauthern eventually returned to the area and continued working in nursing. Looking back on those early days, she described helping open Rhea County Hospital in 1958 as “one of the most rewarding experiences” of her life. Her memories provide a personal glimpse into a very different era of medicine and into the beginnings of hospital care in Rhea County.

Read the Complete History of Rhea County Hospital

To learn more about the story of Rhea County Hospital—from the years of planning that began after World War II, through its opening in 1958 and the many years that followed—read the complete history on Yesterday in Dayton:

Remembering Rhea County Hospital — Yesterday in Dayton

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