About Me

LinkedIn Elizabeth

EP Lab Elizabeth

My name is Elizabeth Keene and I'm older than most full-time, undergraduate degree-seeking students. I got my first degree, a Bachelor of Arts in economics, from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the '90's. It's been a long time since I've been in school! I am a mother of three (barely) grown-up children and am proud to be completing an Associate of Applied Science degree in Cardiac Electrophysiology (EP) at Sentara College of Health Sciences in Chesapeake, VA. After a long career in business and marketing, I'm thrilled to be starting a second (dream) career in invasive healthcare as a technologist in a hospital EP lab (and relocating back to Richmond, VA, where I've lived for most of my adult life)!

I am an animal lover and have always had at least one cat as a pet since I was born (current brood is one dog and three cats). My love of creatures and strong curiosity as a young child about how living bodies are built and function, made me want to be a veterinarian for most of my primary and secondary schooling. I was a science and math dork who played with chemistry sets and microscopes at home, and who volunteered to stay after school, for example, to do advanced dissections (a fetal pig's brain, in 11th grade AP biology, is a stand-out) because it was fascinating to me. But, as it often happens in life when we make a plan, I got diverted from my goals! Not that studying economics and all my previous jobs weren't beneficial to me, they were. But I've always felt like I was meant to do more with my natural passion and curiosity relating to life sciences. This late in life, though, I knew veterinary school would be out of the question. However, a healthcare career benefitting my fellow humans was not! I spent a lot of time researching allied health professions and programs close to me in Richmond, VA. It would be word that my dad in Greensboro, NC had had a sudden heart attack and was in the cardiac cath lab in Moses Cone Hospital, though, that led me to choose cardiovascular technology, and eventually, EP, as the field I would pursue as my second career. My dad had, in fact, coded during a STEMI on the cath lab table that day, but the physician and his team got his heart started again. They saved his life. They made it possible for me, my step-mother, siblings, and my dad's closest friends to see him lucid and in good spirits, before other health events, shortly thereafter, took his life. It was those five-or-so days I spent by my dad's bedside, witnessing everybody from nurses, to patient care techs, to physicians, to clergy, end-of-life coaches, and beyond, care for my dad and attend to me and my family, that made me want to contribute, personally. I was thrilled to find Sentara College of Health Sciences offered the programs that checked all the boxes of my search requirements!

Since starting my cardiac EP education, I have learned so much about the heart, it's electrical circuitry and the amazing way is can adapt to illness and abnormalities! I have also, sadly, learned much more about atrial fibrillation, including that it is still, after so many advances in modern medicine, largely a mystery to scientists and physicians, in terms of it's cause and perpetuating mechanisms. This, coupled with the fact that it's the most common cardiac arrhythmia people suffer from, and that with the aging population, it is predicted to become an epidemic, makes me hopeful and excited to soon be practicing in the EP lab, and to possibly see life-changing breakthroughs in a-fib research during my lifetime. As a soon-member of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), the electrophysiology professional organization, and current reader of their journal, EP Lab Digest, I can be educated about current research and technological happenings. Being in a network of EP professionals, all of whom are working toward the same mission of curing people and saving lives, ensures accountability and can facilitate my career growth. I'm excited to learn from other, highly educated EP brains around the country!

I am passionate about education and hope to use my upcoming EP lab experience, customer service and marketing background, and networking skills to someday be an educator myself. EP is an emerging, lucrative field, and there aren't enough EP techs with Registered Cardiac Electrophysiology Specialist (RCES) credentials to to keep up with the growing market. I hope to be instrumental, within five years, in bridging at least a local gap between Sentara College of Health Sciences' Tidewater, VA market and the Richmond, VA metro area. I would love to help more people, like me, become EP techs in my hometown, so physicians can help more people who have cardiac arrhythmias! 

There are many directions in which my new EP tech career can lead. For the moment, though, I am just happy to look back on my decision in 2018 to go this route, and know, beyond a flicker of a doubt, that I chose wisely and correctly. This is where I'm supposed to be. 

Oh, and P.S. One of my kids is just finishing her first year of vet school. I can't wait until she can teach me everything she knows! 😉