Ambassadors Legacy

She took pride in her work as a nursing assistant, until retiring in her sixties to care for her husband. She proudly told vivid stories of serving as an advocate for her patients at the hospital, discovering and improving aspects of her patients’ care in ways that the nurses and physicians could not. Representing their interests and caring for them to the best of her ability helped to give her life purpose. As well as raising a family of nine surviving children in Birmingham, AL. Her faith in God and the life she lived continues on in the Ambassadors legacy. Through her final battle with pancreatic cancer, while accompanied in her home by her grandson, her bravery and life of service testify to her legacy. Her name was Bessie Lee Saxton. Her grandson was Ronald Bryant, at the time a high school student and aspiring physician.

In order to gain experience in the medical field a few years later, the future physician worked as a nursing assistant for nine months while a premedical student in college. It was much later when those planted seeds served as a foundation for Ambassadors. While working as a physician in the hospital, a colleague commented on the need for personal caregivers for the elderly in the hospital. Those who could treat seniors with dignity and improve their safety and quality of life. From this idea sprang Patient Sitters, later renamed Ambassadors. Little did we know, that we were continuing a tradition that began with Bessie Saxton in Birmingham, AL. Decades earlier–a tradition of serving as a caring representative for our clients.