Team Spotlight
Three Generations One Calling
May 12, 2026
For three generations of women in one family, nursing was never simply a career path, but a calling that was first embraced by Peggy Silva, RN, then carried forward by her daughter, Trista Campos, RN, and now answered by her granddaughter, Allana.
Peggy works in the Emergency Department (ED) at Adventist Health Hanford as a nursing coordination specialist. Her daughter, Trista, once an ED nurse herself, now serves as administrative director of Transitional Care Management, helping patients navigate care after they leave the hospital. Allana, the youngest of the three, works in the same ED as a patient advocate, while also attending college to become a nurse.
For Allana, nursing was part of her everyday life, long before she imagined it could become her future. Some of her earliest memories are of watching her mother and grandmother prepare for work — pressing their scrubs, packing for long shifts, and stepping into roles that, even as a child, she could see mattered deeply to them.
“It was kind of an everyday routine for me,” Allana says. “My mom was in school to become an RN, and every night, I would watch her do her homework and then she would help me with my second-grade math. Now, nursing is something I’m working toward.”
That future became clearer when Allana joined Adventist Health’s workforce development program at the age of 17. She had once imagined becoming a medical malpractice attorney, but one day in the ED changed everything.
“Probably 10 minutes into watching the nurses, I was like, ‘Mom, I want to do this.’”
Today, she works in the same department as her grandmother — and at the very same desk her mother once used.
“I love seeing my grandma in action in the ED,” Allana says. “The nurses rely heavily on her. And although my mom isn’t in the ED anymore, there are still nurses who remember when she was. It’s cool to know she’s still working with my grandma, in some capacity, to help patients after their care.”
For Trista, that same calling began by watching Peggy. She witnessed her mom build a career in nursing and saw firsthand how deeply she cared for her patients.
“I was literally born into Adventist Health,” Trista says. “I was born at Central Valley General Hospital on Douty Street. My mom began working at Hanford Community Hospital in 2005 as an RN. I saw how much she loved her job, which is why I applied to be a CNA at the same hospital.”
While serving as a CNA and attending probation officer school — with a dream of working with troubled youth — one conversation would change the course of her career. After watching Trista care for his mother over several days, a patient’s son, who happened to be the principal of a vocational nursing program, told her she had everything it takes to become an exceptional nurse.
Trista took that comment as confirmation to pursue nursing fulltime.
“I felt that was God’s plan and guidance,” she says. “I started as a CNA, then LVN, then RN, and am now in a leadership role.”
For Peggy, the family’s first nurse, the path began with a different dream. She had wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. But after encouragement from an aunt and several cousins in healthcare, she gave nursing a try — and never looked back.
“I took the leap, and here I am today,” says Peggy, who has spent more than two decades with Adventist Health.
What kept her at the organization was never just medicine, but the opportunity to care for the whole person.
“It’s exciting because, as a nurse, you can have a positive impact on a person’s life. You’re caring for a patient, not just medically, but as a whole person,” she says.
Peggy was instrumental in helping launch the hospital’s Clothes Closet program to provide clothing and meals for patients experiencing homelessness. When Allana was little, she joined her grandma in stocking the drawers for patients in need.
“Allana would come with me to fill the clothes drawers so our patients would have clothes when they left the hospital,” Peggy says. “It’s fun to see that she’s now interested in healthcare.”
That same instinct to serve continues with Trista, whose work now extends beyond the hospital walls.
Last year, she founded the Central Valley Nurse Honor Guard, a nonprofit that honors nurses at the end of life, in retirement, and at pinning ceremonies — offering tributes that recognize not just a profession, but a lifetime of service.
“Nurses pour every bit of themselves into their careers and into a life of service,” Trista says. “These tributes are a way to give that final release of duty to the nurse and their family.”
Together, the three women continue to support one another in and out of the hospital — volunteering at community health fairs, cheering each other on through school, and often caring for the same patients across different points in their journey.
For Peggy, it’s the kind of legacy she never could have planned — but one she sees clearly now. Before the hospital was built, Peggy and her family donated a room in the ED in memory of her parents — Trista’s grandparents and Allana’s great-grandparents. Years later, all three women would find themselves walking those same halls, each called there in their own season.
Three generations. One family. One calling that’s still being answered.
