Park Ridge nurse named Advocate Lutheran General Hospital Nurse of the Year
Katie Mayworm, an OB-GYN nurse at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, has been named the 2023 Advocate Lutheran General Nurse of the Year.
Mayworm, 40, of Glenview has worked at the hospital in Park Ridge since 2007 but developed an interest in nursing at a young age while she took care of her grandmother after a stroke and babysat and cared for local families and children, according to a news release from Advocate.
“I've always had like an affinity for kids and babies, so I think putting those two things together really has shaped how I see nursing, because how I want my family member treated is how I kind of take my patients,” Mayworm said.
She said the labor, delivery and postpartum aspect of her job are the most impactful experiences for her. She added that she makes special efforts to accommodate the wishes of parents whose babies have died and she works to support them through grief.
“It's challenging as a nurse to go in one room, and it’s a happy space and in the next room, they’re grieving, and so to try to kind of bridge that gap and go from place to place is difficult on the staff, but also, you want to provide those grieving parents with the things that they find meaningful at that time,” Mayworm said. “So whatever that is to them, helping to arrange those things or just be a part of those moments for them is very important.”
Amanda Stoeckel, clinical nurse manager at Advocate Lutheran General, commended Mayworm’s desire to provide high-quality care to mothers and newborns and called her a role model and team-player.
“I think one of the biggest things with nursing is that it’s ever changing. There’s new literature, there’s new evidence-based practice out there,” Mayword said. “Being able to kind of go with all the new changes is something that can be challenging at times because there's so much of it, but it's also a great thing because there's advances to patient care and to what nurses are able to do.”