Candace Carter Miller, MSN ’77:  Caring for vets

“Everyone I knew had been there, including my father,” she says. “There was no such thing as orientation; we were thrown into the deep end.”

She vividly remembers that time and believes it prepared her well for her future nursing career. “It was exciting, maturing, challenging, life changing.”

Army nurse

Born in the Panama Canal Zone, where her father was an Army colonel, Miller grew up on military bases around the world. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing through the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing and, after a year with the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Danang, Vietnam, arrived at Letterman Army Medical Center, then an active facility on the Presidio of San Francisco.

Her initial focus there was on caring for kids with cancer, which made nearby UCSF the best place to continue her studies. “All pediatric Army cancer patients west of Colorado came to Letterman,” she says. “Working with those patients could be so difficult, yet so rewarding.”

I’m grateful for my time at UCSF because it taught me to be a leader.

While earning a master’s degree with help from the GI Bill, Miller transitioned from active duty to the reserves of the California Army National Guard.

Caring for Vets

After completing an oncology residency in Washington, D.C., she worked with adult cancer patients at Hospice by the Bay in Marin County, Calif. Then, in 1980, she began a 32-year career in Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers – first in San Francisco, then in Sacramento. She was the San Francisco VA’s first oncology clinical nurse specialist (CNS) and set up its first formal chemotherapy infusion center. Later, she developed its wound clinic.

“I loved working for the VA and as a CNS, since I could develop roles for myself and have an impact on many areas of the hospital,” she says. “I’m grateful for my time at UCSF because it taught me to be a leader.”

Like her father before her, she retired as a full colonel. Now she is enjoying spending time with her grown children and her husband, Doss Miller, who also worked at the VA for many years. She volunteers at her church and ushers at the Harris Center for the Performing Arts.

“I’m enjoying the arts now, after spending all my life in the sciences,” she says.