This October, Hilton Head Medical Center nurse Deb Hartberger will do what many Americans dream about: She’ll retire. At least, mostly. More on that in a minute.
But she’s not counting down the days. Even though she and her recently retired husband are embarking on a new adventure — traveling the back roads of America in the RV they recently bought — she’s reluctant to leave the place where she’s spent her whole career.
Hartberger officially joined what was then Hilton Head Hospital (HHH) as an ICU nurse on July 8, 1991. But even before that, she’d worked in the hospital’s ER one summer during college.
After working in the ICU for three years, she moved to the PACU (post-anesthesia care unit — more commonly known as the recovery room for people who’ve had surgery). That’s been her work home for 31 years. She’s so close with her colleagues that she describes them as “family.”
One person became her family — literally. She met her husband, Jeff, at the hospital in 1988 when she was a student nurse and he was a firefighter/paramedic — a job he held for 41 years, making him the longest-serving member of the Hilton Head team.
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When Hartberger retires, she’ll take a lot of institutional memory with her. She recalls when medical charts were paper-based. “Everything’s done by computer now,” she said. “That was a challenge at first. We felt like it took away from keeping our eyes on the patient. I remember looking down at the screen and patients saying, ‘Uh-oh, it must be serious.’ I’d tell them: ‘No; I’m just concentrating.’”
She marvels at how medicine has advanced during the 30-plus years she’s been there. The hospital has added a cath lab and expanded services for it — including adding a stand-by ambulance for cardiac patients who need to be transferred to Savannah; expanded interventional radiology services and added spine, laparoscopic, open-heart and robotic surgeries.
“I was there when patients having total joint replacements had to be admitted to the hospital,” she recalled. “Now they can go home the same day.”
Hartberger delivered both of her now-grown children there, and in 2024, she had a total hip replacement. “Just about all my relatives — my parents, grandparents, sister, my husband, my kids, my aunts, uncles and in-laws — have all used Hilton Head Hospital, and we've all had amazing experiences here. I’m so proud to be part of the staff.”
Having lived on the island since 1980, she knows a lot of her patients and calls it a “privilege to take care of people in our community.”
Of course, she’s taken care of plenty of vacationers, too, including others who work in health care. “We’ve had surgeons vacationing here who’ve needed surgery,” she said. “And they’re nervous because they’re not with their people. But I’m always so confident in telling everyone, ‘Don't worry; you’re going to be well taken care of.’”
“We take care of patients, and we take care of each other,” she added. “That’s what’s kept me here.”
What helped lead Hartberger there was the Hospital Auxiliary. When she graduated as a member of the first graduating class at Hilton Head High School in 1984, she got a $750 scholarship. “It meant a lot to me, and it meant a lot to my parents,” she said. “I recently found the letter I got from the Auxiliary; you know it was special to me since I saved it all this time.”
History repeated itself when her daughter, Abbi, received two Auxiliary scholarships — one in 2019 for $2,000 and another in 2020 for $2,000. She went to the University of South Carolina and majored in public health and environmental science. “We are so grateful to the Auxiliary,” Hartberger said.
Hartberger was an Auxiliary member when she was in college and serving as a volunteer in the physical therapy department. She may join again in retirement and come back as a volunteer. “Our volunteers help our staff tremendously,” she said.
She’s not ready to leave Novant Health Hilton Head Medical Center entirely. She hopes to fill in on an as-needed basis. It’s known as “PRN” in the medical world.
“Nursing has been an amazing career, and leaving is very emotional,” she said. “This has always been a very collaborative environment. We're all here for the same reason: the patients. Thirty-four years have gone by really quickly. I will miss being here.”
