{"id":231001,"date":"2025-10-22T04:14:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T04:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/231001\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T04:14:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T04:14:20","slug":"muskoka-nurse-retires-after-36-years-of-service-my-muskoka-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/231001\/","title":{"rendered":"Muskoka nurse retires after 36 years of service : My Muskoka Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Muskoka\u2019s \u201cmost recognized and loved nurses\u201d has retired after 36 years of service.<\/p>\n

Way Lem, a registered nurse in Muskoka, hung up his scrubs on Oct. 19 after helping many patients across various areas of healthcare in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, it\u2019s been incredibly rewarding and incredibly fulfilling. I would have not expected how much I have received and gotten out of this. [The community] took care of me as well, so it went both ways very quickly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Lem says it is that pivotal time for him in which he would like to pursue other adventures, like taking care of his grandchildren.<\/p>\n

He says it has been an honour for him to be able to take care of people and to work with other professionals in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been one beautiful career,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo credit: Paula Snyder<\/p>\n

He says he started his career in 1989, when he moved from Brampton to Bracebridge and was hired as a full-time nurse at South Muskoka Memorial Hospital, where he spent most of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started out in the career as sort of one of those little reflective things where I thought \u2018I wonder what I\u2019m going to do with the rest of my life\u2019 many years ago,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Lem says his wife, who was graduating from nursing school, inspired him to get into healthcare, adding it ended up being a very good choice for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve met a phenomenal amount of absolutely fantastic people throughout my entire career and being exposed to so many different varieties of nursing in different departments that it\u2019s just been amazing, truly amazing,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, Lem has worked in the emergency department, ICU, telehealth, nursing home, correctional centre and most recently, hospice care.<\/p>\n

One of his colleagues, Paula Snyder, says years after he had worked at certain locations, patients and their families would still ask, \u201cIs Way Lem working today?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWay, you have given your all to one of the toughest, most rewarding roles in healthcare, and you\u2019ve done it with grace, heart, and more patience than most people could dream of,\u201d says Snyder. \u201cYou are truly a legend, and we wish you the best in retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Muskoka\u2019s \u201cmost recognized and loved nurses\u201d has retired after 36 years of service. Way Lem, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[109881,49,48,84,392,109882,1705,2008,109883],"class_list":{"0":"post-231001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-109881","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-registered-nurse","14":"tag-retirement","15":"tag-top-story","16":"tag-way-lem"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}