Kay McVay worked as a registered nurse in critical care for nearly four decades before retiring in 1995. She is a tenacious and effective champion of patients’ rights who was elected and served as the former Vice President, and then President of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee from 1994 to 2003. As a young girl growing up in Compton, California, school counselors discouraged her aspirations to become a nurse. The rest is history.