Nickey Bichsel’s Big Voice: 15 Years Strong

Nickey Bichsel will be the first to tell you she's hard-headed. She'll also tell you that making it 15 years at Panhandle Eye Group (PEG) makes the group a bunch of suckers. She's joking—mostly—but the laugh that follows says everything you need to know about her. Nickey is the kind of person who lightens a room without trying, shows up ready to help, and has quietly become one of the most relied-upon people in the building.

They Needed Muscles. She Had Them.

Nickey didn't find this job through a job board. She found it the old-fashioned way—through relationships. Before coming to PEG, she worked at a nursing home and made frequent trips to the Amarillo Cataract & Eye Surgery Center with her patients. The nurses got to know her, and when she needed a job, they thought of her.

The role itself was a tad specific. The surgery center needed someone who could physically transfer patients who couldn't stand, pivot, or move safely on their own. Someone strong. Someone steady.

"They needed muscles, and that was me," she reflects.

Fifteen years later, she's still the person they call when someone needs help, though the job has expanded well beyond what it started as.

An Orderly Who Does a Little of Everything

Ask Nickey what an Orderly does, and she'll answer with a smile on her face that it’s whatever the team needs to get the job done.

She gives families instructions, escorts patients in and out, assists with transfers, helps hold patients steady during procedures, and steps in whenever the team is stretched. She's the kind of presence that makes everyone around her work a little more smoothly, and she does it without fanfare.

She also, it turns out, has a secret weapon: her voice. "Everyone's like, 'Oh, you have such a big voice,'" she said. "And a lot of times, my big voice helps to calm patients down."

It's not high-pitched, she explains. It's grounded. Monotone, even. And for anxious patients who need someone to cut through the noise and just be steady, it works.

"A lot of them are like, 'Thank you. Your voice helped me to chill out.'"

The Moment That Stays With Her

Nickey has seen a lot in 15 years, but ask her what stands out most and she'll point to Mission Cataracts, the event where PEG doctors provide free, vision-restoring cataract surgeries to low-income, uninsured individuals.

One specific year, a man came up from Houston with his son for one of the free procedures. He hadn't seen his son in 30 years…and his son was 35 years old. Dr. Avery Rush, one of PEG’s founding members and now retired, went ahead and operated on both eyes—before that was standard practice—and when it was over, the fog finally lifted for the patient.

"He was crying, the son was crying, the staff was crying, the newspaper people were crying," Nickey said. "It was pretty awesome."

She discusses the transformation cataract patients experience after surgery with a warmth that's truly heartfelt. She describes walking them outside after surgery in the summertime, watching them look around like they're seeing the world for the first time.

"They're just like, 'Oh, I hadn't seen that color in forever.'"

What Keeps Her Going

Nickey doesn't romanticize the job. There are monotonous days, and she'll tell you so. But she's also quick to point out that the monotonous days have their own appeal. Sometimes you just want to go on autopilot and not have to think too hard.

She's worked with a lot of crews over 15 years—from the staff who were here when she started to, as she puts it, "the young kids now." She's navigated the changes, adapted when she had to (even if she balked at it at first), and found a way to make it work.

As for what 15 years means to her personally? "Steadiness, compatibility, and willingness."

Hard-headed, she may be. But she’s still here, still helping, still making patients feel calm, still the person the team leans on. And that says more than she probably would.

Nickey may tell you the surgery center is full of suckers for keeping her around this long. We'd say they got pretty lucky. Congrats on 15 years at Panhandle Eye Group!