Meet Dr. Patricia Ellison, who really needs no introduction. As our regular columnist for Girl Camper Magazine’s “Camp Doctor,” column, she advises us on how to treat everything from poison ivy to hypothermia. A down-to-earth, Oklahoma-born emergency room doctor with more than 25 years of experience, she’s a Girl Camper like the rest of us. Her third Airstream, “Iva Mae” (named for her aunt), plays double duty as a recreational vehicle and a place for her to sleep after busy days at the ER in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, just outside Tulsa.
Her Happy Place
“I’m up at 4 a.m. for the morning shift. I leave the campground, then maybe swing by to pick up donuts for the staff. The hospital is very close, maybe a mile or so from the campground,” Dr. Ellison says. After work, she drives back to her “happy place,” her 2019, 23-foot Flying Cloud Airstream at the Riverside Campground and RV Park. Unwinding with a phone call to her loved ones and sometimes Netflix, she falls asleep.
Born and raised in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, Dr. Ellison says she didn’t come from a family of doctors. Her parents were plumbers. “I knew that I wanted to be a doctor probably at the age of four,” she says. “I never wanted to do anything else.” Pausing, she adds, “God put it in my heart.”
She fulfilled her childhood wish, attending Oklahoma State University and completing her residency at Michigan State University. Michigan became home and she devoted her time to homeschooling her five children. They lived on a Christmas tree farm, raised 100 chickens and participated in 4H, Boy Scouts and orchestra. Homeschooling gave them a chance to travel in their pop-up camper. As her family grew, so did her campers, a larger pop-up, then a larger RV.
Camped all across the US.
“I had a 15-passenger, fire-engine red van and pulled that thing everywhere,” she says. From a seasonal site on Lake Michigan to week-long campouts at 4H fairgrounds or the Suzuki Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in the Upper Peninsula, the family camped for homeschool outings in Nashville and all across the U.S.
Over her career, she has taken medical mission trips in Nairobi and the Ukraine, served as a first responder and helped people around the world, but these past couple of years have seen her pulling back-to-back 12-hour shifts at the Ascension St. John Hospital in Bartlesville. Now she has her Airstream, complete with all the comforts of home, including a full kitchen, internet access, cable and other luxuries she’s never had before. Her Airstream has been on site at Riverside RV Park since August 2020, a necessity for her after tiring days spent tending to an overflow of patients. Dr. Ellison’s permanent home on her days off is in Yukon, Oklahoma.
Wide Open Prairies
Before her marathon days at work, she would often invite her staff to relax back at the campsite. The campground is near a tallgrass prairie reservation with over 2,500 bison. Wide open prairies are part of the Oklahoma landscape. “You can stand on a beer can and see Kansas,” she laughs. “Oklahoma is very flat.”
Occupants at the campground are often other commuting professionals, many in the oil rig industry. Last summer, Dr. Ellison had some Hollywood campground neighbors as well. Director Martin Scorsese, with a star-studded cast including Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DeCaprio and an entourage of talent landed in Oklahoma to film Killers of the Moon Flower. Cast members paid visits to her at the ER for minor sprains and other ailments. Her next door neighbor at the campground then was from Austin, Texas and created sets and props for the movie. Some scenes were filmed at nearby celebrity chef (aka The Pioneer Woman) Ree Drummond’s ranch.
“One regret I have is that Robert DeNiro ripped his hamstring and I was working that day, but he flew back home to take care of it,” she says. “He didn’t need to do that. I could have taken care of him!”
As she retreats at the end of a long work day, her Airstreamis waiting. “It’s not too big. I feel safe there,” she says. “It’s a classic and it makes me happy!”
This article on Dr. Patricia Ellison by Sarah Miller was originally published in Girl Camper Magazine.
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