Tammy Weaver: Instructor, Adventurer

As a child Tammy Weaver dreamed of being a brain surgeon.

After entering nursing school, she quickly learned that the surgeons don’t necessarily have the most important job in the hospital.

“Everything you do in the healthcare field is a big deal,” she tells her students. “Everything you do is important. Every person who works at the hospital has value.”

Weaver started nursing school but moved to health administration. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Daytona State College and her Master’s from the University of Phoenix. She moved her way up through departments and now works from home as a medical coder as well as an instructor for Bryant & Stratton College.

She found medical coding to be the place where she could relieve patients’ stress the most.

“In coding you have to do it right,” Weaver said. “If you don’t, patients get a bill in the mail that is huge and then they have to call and sort it out. It’s very stressful for them. You’ve got to put yourself in their place.”

Weaver said she feels students at Bryant & Stratton are best prepared to enter the workplace.

“You are definitely getting your money’s worth,” she said. “There is no way to graduate and not know what you are doing.”

Many of her students continue to keep in touch and tell her where the program has taken them.

“I still get pictures and text messages from them. They just want to let me know where they are at,” Weaver said. “It’s very rewarding.”

When Weaver is not teaching she rides motorcycles and is taking flying lessons. At age 56 Weaver said she is ready to see what other adventures await her.

“I think when you get to a certain age you feel like you need to look back and say, ‘what else can I do with my life?’ We are having a blast,” she said.