Marcie Warner Brownfield wanted a career that allowed her to work anywhere in the US, that could also make a difference in people’s lives. Now, as a long-time nurse and health insurance expert, she’s enjoying the best of both worlds.
Brownfield graduated from Dublin in 1992, and went on to Ranger College in Brownwood to earn her Licensed Vocational Nurse certification.
Once she received her LVN in 1994, Brownfield started working at Stephenville Medical & Surgical Clinic as a family practice nurse. “In family practice, patients are coming to the doctor’s office, you’re taking their temperature, their blood pressure, getting their symptoms, giving them shots,” she said.
Brownfield’s then-husband, Robert Hill, had studied IT in college, and when he graduated the couple moved to Kansas City, Missouri for his job. Brownfield found a position working as a disability case manager for Liberty Mutual Insurance, which allowed her to work in healthcare without applying for a multi-state nursing license. The job consisted mostly of calling doctors’ offices to work out the terms for patients’ disability benefits.
Moving from Dublin to a large city was exciting for Brownfield, but also a little scary. “I grew up really close to my family — I’d always had them five minutes away at most — but I was excited for the adventure,” she said. “I was really fortunate that the people of Kansas City are very friendly. I made some friends where I worked and they kind of became my surrogate grandparents, and made some friends around where we live. It was a really good experience for me.”
Brownfield and her thenhusband moved back to Texas in 1999, and in 2000 her son Caleb was born. Brownfield transferred within Liberty Mutual, but over the next few years, she began to miss the direct patient interactions of nursing. In 2006 she began studying for her RN at Tarleton, and graduated in 2009.
Once she was out of school, Brownfield got a job at Harris Methodist in Stephenville doing bedside patient care.
The job was higher-stress than her previous position doing family medicine. “I felt prepared by my education, but there’s more of an urgency,” she said. “You’re taking care of people a lot more, being there to support their families. The patients are sick and may be scared of dying, and so in addition to the physical part of it there is a lot of emotional support you provide for the patients and their families.”
Having this direct interface with the patients was meaningful to Brownfield. “I loved it,” she said. “All it took was one patient or one family member being like, ‘You made such a difference, thank you so much.’” The hours though, were not ideal for Brownfield’s situation. She had to work nights, and “as a single mom the 12-hour shifts are not great,” she said. “I was really lucky I had the support of my parents and grandparents.”
She ended up leaving her job at Harris Methodist in 2012 in order to work a job with more manageable hours at another insurance company, Cigna.
She started at Cigna in a nursing role as a health coach, and then moved to the case management department as a subject matter expert, since she’d had experience at Liberty Mutual. She ended up working as the unit manager for Cigna, but found herself searching for something new.
“I had made a relationship with the recruiter that worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield, and she reached out to let me know they had a brand new product that I could be senior manager of,” Brownfield said. “That’s how I ended up moving just to Blue Cross because it was an opportunity for more responsibility, and to learn about another company and another part of the industry.”
Brownfield worked in her senior management role for over two years, supervising five people and working with nearly 50 clients. Recently she moved to another role as a seniorclinicalstrategymanager. “[In my new position] I’m thinking three to five years ahead, and implementing federal legislation across the clinical space,” she said.
While the job operates on a larger scale than the direct service work she was used to, Brownfield still finds it fulfilling. “It’s not bedside nursing and it took me a little while to wrap my brain around it, but this is still a very helping role,” she said. “I’m just helping at a population level, not at an individual level.”
In the future, Brownfield hopes to stay with Blue Cross Blue Shield for a while, then hopes to continue expanding her expertise in the healthcare industry. “Once I’ve learned what the position has to teach me I will start looking for another part of the business to learn about,” she said.
Brownfield works remotely, and decided last year to move back to Dublin to be closer to her family. “I love it,” she said. “I am a quarter of a mile from my parents, and I have coffee with them almost every morning, and my brother Chris lives here and he has my first niece, so I usually get to see them at least once a week.”
Brownfield is looking forward to becoming more involved in the Dublin community now that she’s back home.
When she’s not working, Brownfield is usually spending time with her parents, Paul and Judy Warner, and her husband, Stephen Brownfield, or venturing out into nature. “I like to kayak, and there’s several state parks within three to four hours away where I will go kayak, hike, and play with my dog,” she said.
She also enjoys gardening. “That’s my new thing,” she said. “Before I moved back here I didn’t really have a place to garden, but since then I’ve been experimenting with growing herbs. I grew basil and some little stuff this summer, and this summer, and I just planted my first ever fall garden.”
Brownfield finds time for self-improvement as well. She enjoys reading and taking classes to further her understandingof thehealthcare industry. “I’m a lifelong learner and I always want to be learning something new,” she said.
Pre-COVID, she also worked as a yoga instructor in her free time. “I enjoyed doing yoga and wanted to share it with people who did not think they had the right look or ability to go to a traditional studio,” she said. Throughout her life, Brownfield has found inspiration in her family, and is grateful for their help during tough times. “When I was going through my divorce, things were really tough and really tight… and going back to get my bachelor’s in nursing as a single parent was a challenge,” she said. “But I had a great support system.”
Her parents live near her in Dublin and her son, Caleb Hill, now 22, lives in Arizona. Brownfield’s advice to Dublin graduates is to be open and accepting of others. “Work to understand how different people have different beliefs and values and that we can all find a way to work together if everybody comes together in good faith and assumes positive intent,” she said.
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.