By Nancy Powell, RN, contributor
Greg Maroney, RN, never strays far from his born vocation
to help people. His love of life and nature, something that is inherent in his
blood, translates to the comforting presence that greets trauma patients in the
emergency room. It is this love that ebbs and flows from his fingers at the keys
of his piano.
A friend introduced Maroney to emergency medicine. A single
ride in an ambulance with a friend cemented Maroney’s love for the profession,
and he began working as an emergency medical technician along the San Francisco
Bay area in 1976. Maroney drove ambulances, and eventually received his
certification as a paramedic. For nineteen years he continued with his duties in
pre-hospital care, until Maroney realized that a career in paramedics belonged
more to the territory of young men.
However, Maroney wasn’t willing to forsake his love of
helping others. His desire to stay in emergency medicine sent him back to the
classroom, and he earned his nursing license in 1994. The following year he
returned to emergency medicine in a different capacity, this time as an
emergency room nurse.
A death of a close family member initiated a change in
Maroney’s world view that resonated deeply. “It stripped me of everything,”
explains Maroney. “After that, there were only one or two things I had that were
truly mine that nothing could disturb. It was my love of nature and my music.
These two things were a part of me.”
The strong pull of nature propelled Maroney to pack his
belongings and his seven-foot Yamaha Grand piano onto a moving truck for a
cross-country journey to his wife’s native Pennsylvania, to a farmhouse set
comfortably in the rural countryside near York.
“Since the two are close together within me, nature and my
environment gives me a lot of stimulus, or the seeds for ideas that translates
into music.”
Maroney often finds replenishment and relaxation from the
high stress of emergency room medicine in the keys of his Yamaha. The moods and
sounds of his surrounding environment inspire him. While practicing on a May
morning at his farmhouse, the distant sounds of wind chimes served as the muse
for his newest album, Wind Chimes. The theatrical fury of a spring
thunderstorm provided the impetus for Sentinel. Rural life found a
receptive voice in Harmony Grove. Maroney’s personal relationship with
nature is interpreted through the fingertips of one who understands its
conflicting personality. The music both nourishes and nurses the soul. “My
music helps me in nursing. I get up in the morning and feel replenished.”
Music is so much a part of Maroney that it runs in his
blood. His grandmother entertained crowds as a concert pianist, and Maroney
started his musical endeavors at the age of five. He studied formally for many
years, playing in jazz groups and bands during his early years in the Bay area.
Even with his years of strong playing, Maroney continues to dedicate time
towards the study of his instrument. Maroney’s strong belief in lifelong
learning is rooted in the desire to progress in his chosen art form.
“You can study it and never really master it,” explains
Maroney. “Piano playing becomes more subtle. Subtlety in expression comes from
control. True expression in the piano is through it. You want to make the piano
sing in order to express what I hear mechanically, through my fingers, sticks.
To make it have a soul requires a lot of control with my fingers and muscles.”
Greg Maroney is blessed to be able to combine his
profession with his musical passions by performing at charitable events for
various nursing functions, conferences, and award banquets, as he has for the
Pennsylvania State Nurses Association. This month, he will perform a benefit
concert for his beloved Habitat for Humanity at the Mac Recital Hall at York
College. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to give back to the community, and to do
it through music.”
Whether by nursing the sick back to health as an ER nurse,
by building homes for those in lesser circumstances with Habitat for Humanity,
or by expressing beauty and an affirmation of life through his music, Maroney is
a man at peace with his environment, sincere and thoughtful, yet happy with his
work in the emergency room and with his music.
“Nursing is a wonderful thing,” says Maroney. His chosen
vocation as a nurse sustains and fulfills his desire to help people. “What can I
do for you? What do I need to do to help you? There’s nothing better than that.”
© 2006. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.