Sr. Velma Rose Pomes, radiation therapist

    Medical Mission Sister Velma Rose Pomes, a native of New Orleans and former member of St. Maurice Parish, died July 17 at St. Joseph’s Manor in Meadowbrook, Pa. She was 81.
    Her funeral Mass was celebrated July 23 at the Medical Mission Sisters’ North American Headquarters in Philadelphia.
    Sister Velma graduated from Holy Angels Academy in New Orleans. After hearing about the Medical Mission Sisters during a presentation in school, she entered the Community in 1950, making her first vows in 1953 and final vows in 1958.
    At Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia, she earned a certificate as a radiologic technician, followed by a bachelor’s degree from the Medical College of Georgia. During the late 1960s, Sister Velma was a radiography supervisor in hospitals in Venezuela, before going to Augusta, Ga., for more studies in radiation therapy.
    She spent the next eight years in Philadelphia as clinical coordinator and radiation therapist at a cancer hospital.
    In 1983, she helped start the first educational program for radiation therapists in the Gulf States in New Orleans, and she taught there for many years before retiring.
    By 2000, she was volunteering as a chaplain at St. Anthony Hospital, St. Petersburg, Fla., where she visited emergency room patients and their families.