Staff Member Celebrates 60th Year at Temple

On September 20, Ethel Lombard marked her 60th year of employment at Temple – one of the longest-tenured employees in the School of Medicine’s history. For all 21,914 days, she has been the administrative assistant to the Neurology Chair, working for five in total – Drs. Spiegel, Haase, Alter, Greenstein and Azizi.

 A native of New Orleans, Lombard moved to Philadelphia in 1954 when her husband was transferred to McGuire Air Force Base. She had taught fourth grade for a year but decided she didn’t want to teach in Philadelphia. “I saw ads for secretaries and I had taken an elective in typing so I decided to pursue that,” she says. “I applied to Temple but when I came in for an interview there was only one job open – the position I have now.”

Lombard remembers working on an Underwood manual typewriter in her early years at Temple (“I called it an ice wagon because it was so old”). Physicians dictated their notes into a dictation machine with a frequently-broken cord. There were no pagers, no cell phones, no fax machines, no computers, no email – none of the modern day technologies that abound today.

“The pace was a lot slower back then … nothing in a hurry,” she says simply. “I remember when the school got its first Xerox machine. You had to take your document down to a woman who would make a copy for you.”

One of her most memorable moments at Temple was when the school held the world’s first international symposium on stereoencephalotomy – a method of stabilizing the head during brain surgery, a procedure pioneered at Temple.

“Doctors came from all over the world for the conference,” she remembers. “That first machine is now in the Smithsonian.”

She also recalls weekly lunch outings her first Chair used to take.

“Dr. Spiegel used to take the train to Princeton every Wednesday to have lunch with Einstein … the real Albert Einstein!” she says. Lombard says that her time at Temple has\ passed quickly – an indication that she has enjoyed her job, she says. But with four children, four grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren, the question must be asked … when does she call it quits?

“My husband has been retired for 20-some years, and told me that it was time to ‘give it up’ when I hit 40 years here,” says Lombard, who turned 83 in October. “My oldest daughter is a nurse and she is 62 … she swears she’s going to retire first. But I’m working because I like doing it, not because I have to do it.”

Lombard admits she has had a few opportunities to leave Temple over the years but never seriously considered making a move.

“It’s the love of what I call ‘my’ patients that keeps me here,” she says. “I feel like I make a difference and what I do is important. I tell young people that you have to love what you do. Work is part of your life so you may as well enjoy it. Temple is like home to me.”