In the News

Rebecca Harper: New Vice President for Nursing
at VBMC-Brownsville

BROWNSVILLE, March 15, 2006  – As the new Vice President for Nursing and Chief Nursing Officer at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville, Rebecca Jimenez Harper, RN, MSN, comes with 37 years of nursing experience and a spiritual vision for the practice of nursing in Brownsville.

“I am very excited about being here in Brownsville as Chief Nursing Officer and I have been very impressed with what I’ve seen of the staff nurses here in Brownsville,” Ms. Harper said. “I enjoy working with the nurses, physicians, and other department directors.”

“I don’t think there’s any greater profession than nursing,” Ms. Harper added. “As a nurse, you touch people at the most important and vulnerable times in their lives.”

Ms. Harper said that VBMC-Brownsville has a lot to offer to Valley Baptist Health System as the health system moves forward with its mission, vision and values.

“This was a Mercy Hospital founded by the Sisters,” Ms. Harper said. “Our mission at Valley Baptist is to provide health care the way Jesus would. I think Brownsville has come full circle back to its roots -- and to the calling of Jesus to heal the sick.”

Ms. Harper previously served as Director of Professional Nursing Practice at VBMC-Harlingen, where she was responsible for Nursing Education and the diabetes center, in addition to other duties.

During a nursing career spanning nearly four decades, Ms. Harper also helped open a new hospital in San Antonio (Texsan Heart Hospital), and worked 15 years at the UT-Medical Branch in Galveston, where she functioned as a house supervisor and nursing director, as well as a staff nurse, nurse educator, and head nurse.

In addition, Ms. Harper worked for nine years at Edinburg Regional Medical Director, serving as Director of Quality Improvement over case management, employee health, risk management, trauma services, infection control, and the medical staff office.

Born and raised in San Antonio, Ms. Harper became interested in nursing at an early age. Starting when she was 12 years old, she would serve as a type of teacher’s assistant, helping the Daughters of Charity Sisters, who operated rural health clinics and taught religion classes in low-income areas.

“I just fell in love working with those nuns, taking care of children and poor patients -- and I fell in love with nursing,” Ms. Harper recalled.

Ms. Harper went on to Mercy Hospital School of Vocational Nursing in Jourdanton, Texas, and became a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN). She later received a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Marillac College in St. Louis, Missouri and a Master’s of Science in Nursing from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

For the first 15 years of her career, Ms. Harper worked with the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament Sisters of Victoria at three small rural hospitals in Yoakum, Cuero and Jourdanton, Texas.

Ms. Harper and her husband Jess have been married for 28 years. She has three step-children, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.