Devine Intervention

We map out routes, calculate timelines, and convince ourselves that certainty is just one decision away but that’s hardly ever the way it plays out. Sometimes, the detour becomes the destination. Sometimes, the place you were only supposed to pass through becomes the place you can’t leave.

When Beth Devine arrived at San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) as a registered nurse in 2011, she had a simple, almost mechanical plan: get through her probationary period, keep her head down, and transfer back to Reno, Nevada, where her roots run deep. Reno was home. Reno made sense. San Francisco was just a pit stop.

But The City, with its morning dew, microclimates, and its relentless, unpredictable energy, had other plans. 

“I felt like this was where I was supposed to be,” Devine says, her voice carrying the quiet certainty of someone who has stopped arguing with fate. “And I’ve been here ever since.”

Known among colleagues for her tremendous attitude, sharp sense of humor, and clinical competence, Beth Devine has become something of an evangelist for VA nursing. She talks up the benefits; the health coverage, the pension, the paid time off, but more than that, she speaks of the environment. The camaraderie. The way the mission never feels like just a slogan.

“I’ve been a nurse for 49 years,” she says, letting that number hang in the air. “People who’ve never worked outside VA really don’t know how good it is here. This is a very special place. This city, the leadership, the staff, the commitment, it’s not common. And it’s something I wanted for her too.”

The “her” Beth referred to is her daughter, Summer Cruz. And as of November 2025, a new nurse practitioner at SFVAHCS where her mother has spent nearly a decade and a half growing in her career and building a community.

If you believe in signs, consider this: Beth was pregnant with Summer while attending nursing school. She gave birth not long before graduation. In a very literal sense, Summer was there at the very beginning of her mother’s nursing journey, kicking inside a classroom, born into a world of textbooks and stethoscopes.

“She was meant to be a nurse from day one,” Beth says, laughing. “Although she spent half her life trying not to be one.”

And try she did. Summer swears she explored every possible escape route. She dabbled in other fields, each time telling herself the same thing: I will not become my mother. Not because she didn’t admire her, which she did, immensely. She simply wanted her own path. Her own story.

But life, as it does, kept laughing at her blueprints and after several starts and stops, Summer finally stopped running.

“I didn’t want to be my mom,” Cruz said reflecting on the time. “But once I accepted it and stopped fighting the call, it was easy to figure out what my path was.”
 

She went back to school and became a nurse, beginning her career as a trauma-intensive care nurse and later becoming a nurse practitioner. And after years of poking, prodding and suggestion from her mother, she walked through the doors of San Francisco VA Health Care System not as a visitor, not as Beth’s daughter, but as a colleague. 

For Beth, “it was a wonderful feeling of fulfillment. She finally listened to her mother!”

In her short time at SFVAHCS, Cruz has acclimated quickly while adjusting to the very different environment VA health care provides in contrast to the private sector, essentially echoing the message Beth had delivered over the years. 

“I love my doctors. I’m much happier and I feel more fulfilled,” Cruz said. “I’ve never had anyone help me the way folks help me here.”

Although they don’t work the same floor and their schedules don’t always align, they find pockets of time to say hi to each other or share stories, something that Beth cherishes, especially as she nears the end of her career. 

Asked how many years she think she’ll work before ultimately retiring, Beth paused a bit, “Now that she’s here, it’s going to be difficult to leave. I spent so much time trying to get her here.”

“It’s strange,” Summer interjects. “I spent so long trying to build a different life. And now I’m here, and I keep thinking, this was always the one I was building. I just didn’t have the right map.”

Beth just smiles when she hears that. She’s seen enough to know that the best maps aren’t the ones you draw ahead of time. Sometimes you map out an adventure and find you’ve only ever been heading home the entire time. 

Life laughs at our blueprints. But sometimes, if you’re lucky, it laughs with you.