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After leaving Chambers County almost 20 years ago, Lisa Brandt is back and making a difference in her first year back in her hometown.

Brandt grew up in LaFayette and coming out of high school, she wanted to be a veterinarian. She always loved taking care of animals and thought that would be the best way to help them. She started that dream at Southern Union, but while there, she decided to switch to nursing.

“At that point, I decided that I loved taking care of animals, so why not just take care of people too?” Brandt said.

After graduating from Southern Union, Brandt finished nursing school in Wyoming.

“It was just one of those things that just kind of happened,” she said.

While she was there, her grandmother had a massive stroke, which led to different health problems for her for the rest of her life. Seeing that happen to her grandmother helped cement her desire to help people in need.

“That just gave me the desire to do more in my nursing career,” Brandt said. “It made me realize that I did make the right decision.”

She stayed in Wyoming for several years before deciding to make the jump from a stationary nurse to a traveling nurse. For the last couple of years, Brandt has been traveling around the southeast, stopping at Southeast Health Hospital in Dothan and Piedmont Columbus Regional.

But traveling as a nurse is tough because you don’t see a lot of your family and you could end up in a different area on short notice. This led Brandt to seek a permanent home.

When she was working as a traveling nurse, Brandt had spent some time at EAMC Lanier, which made the hospital one of her first choices.

In February, she was hired at EAMC Lanier.

“I wanted to be permanent, stop traveling and stay back home,” Brandt said. “I just knew that EAMC Lanier was going to be the place for me because it was a family-oriented hospital, and I just I really felt at home as soon as I walked in the doors to meet with everybody.”

The people that work at EAMC make the hospital feel like a family, which was one of its biggest drawing points for Brandt.

“We strive to help each other out,” Brandt said. “We are very big on teamwork, and it’s just very easy to get along with everybody there because everybody’s in the same boat so to speak. We’re doing the same thing. We respect each other.”

Brandt is working in the medical-surgery unit at EAMC Lanier. Since the coronavirus outbreak started, she has been working closely taking care of the people that are fighting the disease.

“It’s been heartbreaking to see what some of these patients go through and not being able to have their family members there,” Brandt said. “Just knowing that I can be there to help when the family can’t, that helps me do the best I can for my patients.”