1996 Annual Report
June Badal, R.N.
Revised April 2000
Sometimes a single event can set the course of one's life: June Badal was a nursing student when she was asked to teach a nursing class to younger students because the instructor had been in a minor accident.
"It was marvelous to be able to impart information and make a difference in people's lives--that has stayed with me throughout my nursing career. In England, where I first practiced, I realized I was spending as much time teaching as I was being a nurse."
"I get more than I give," Badal says of her life today as the nurse educator in charge of the Community Health Resource Center (CHRC; formerly the Women's Health Resource Center) at the Palo Alto Clinic. "People come in with incredible life experiences, marvelous stories and lessons for all of us.
"I have learned how much the will to survive exists within each of us,against enormous odds in some cases.... I have literally held people's hands, embraced them and shed a few tears when the situation has arisen."
Badal was born in Iran, but at 15 she and a younger sister were sent to school in England when her father, in the oil industry, was assigned to two years in the West Indies. After a brief diversion with interior design, Badal enrolled in nursing school.
"We had the most incredible training in England--it was really hands-on, right from the beginning. We learned theory right alongside nursing practice: I was put in charge of a ward of 30 patients when I was a second- or third-year nursing student," Badal recalls. "We grew up very fast. We didn't have time to be teenagers for long--we matured very quickly, and sometimes had split seconds to make decisions." That early challenge and responsibility has stayed with her: "It certainly has made me analyze things carefully, and it also has taught me to be more compassionate."
When she finished nursing school, she returned to Iran for a visit. "My plan was to return to England, become a registered dietitian and go to Africa and work somewhere in the bush. But I got married instead, went back to England and became a nurse-midwife." She lived in British Columbia for a time before moving to the United States in 1981, where she was a delivery nurse before deciding to become a certified childbirth educator.
Badal began teaching several childbirth and wellness classes, but soon realized she missed working with patients and returned to a clinical setting as an OB/Gyn nurse. When PAMF started planning the CHRC in 1995, she saw a natural fit.
Badal's interest in nursing and health awareness began early: "My mother was a nurse. I remember as a little girl going from school to watch her at work. I loved the work she did; I loved the patients' response to her. I saw the impact she was making on their lives, and I decided that's what I wanted to be."
Her mother, now in her 80s, is "quite a remarkable woman," Badal says. "She went to nursing school at a time when women didn't continue their education. Both my parents were incredible role models. They really encouraged education. They told us the sky was the limit as far as they were concerned, and exposed us to so much learning."
Badal became a registered nurse in 1969 and a certified nurse-midwife in 1973. She has been involved in women's health issues for more than a quarter-century. At PAMF, Badal remains deeply involved in such issues--ranging from the personal and family impacts of breast cancer to the tragedy of domestic violence and the erosion of self-worth in adolescent girls.
Badal has dispensed information to several thousand women and men since the Center opened in October 1995. Centrally located, the CHRC is a quiet and sunny haven--where people can research any medical issue using a computer, a clippings file, a referral binder and several hundred books and videos (all kept up-to-date).
"As a registered nurse, I can help people sort through the maze of medical literature and terminology. I can spend time with them--it's not unusual to spend a half-hour to two hours with someone. This provides a personal touch, and everything is confidential.
"One thing I've learned is to try to elicit the message behind what people are telling me. Sometimes they come in and I know what they're asking about is not what brought them to the Center. By spending time talking with them, I'm able to help with the issues that are really troubling them."
When PAMF moved to its new campus in December 1999, the Center expanded in size and broadened its focus from women to everyone--with an area still dedicated to women's health.
"It's been an incredible project," she says of the Center. "It reminds me very much of my work as a mother (she has two adult daughters: Helen and Lisa) and as a midwife.... It's a work in progress; we're still raising this baby, and it's growing and changing all the time."
After work, Badal keeps busy reading or jogging--she regularly runs four miles. She plans to resume watercolor painting this year. Badal often reviews books to determine, along with physician advisors, whether to acquire them for the CHRC. Her coffee/tea mug says it all: "So Many Books, So Little Time."