Nurse of Distinction 2018

As part of Milford Regional’s Nurses Week celebration every year, a Nurse of Distinction is selected that demonstrates Milford Regional’s values in his/her professional practice by providing exceptional care. This year, nominees for this prestigious honor were chosen by their peers in each unit within the hospital. At a heartwarming presentation where each nominee was recognized for their quality work and character by the nurse manager, the 2018 Nurse of Distinction was announced… Linda Getchell, RN from Maternity!

Congratulations to all of the nominees and our 2018 Nurse of Distinction! We are so fortunate to have all of you as part of our Milford Regional family.

Read the nomination sent in below to learn more about our 2018 Nurse of Distinction, Linda Getchell, RN.

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Linda Getchell, RN – Maternity

It is my pleasure to nominate Linda Getchell, RN for a 2018 Nurse of Distinction Award. I believe she is deserving of this distinction because she upholds Milford Regional Medical Center’s mission of providing exceptional health care services to our community by working tirelessly to research, write and execute evidenced based protocols that empower our staff to facilitate healthy delivery outcomes for our mothers and babies.

One major example of this is her exceptional work in bringing an evidenced-based maternal hemorrhage protocol to MRMC in 2017. In May of 2016, our department suffered a devastating maternal death due to an obstetric hemorrhage. In light of this tragedy, Linda has dedicated hundreds of hours to research, unit-based and hospital-wide interdisciplinary education and interdepartmental outreach which has culminated in a three-stage hemorrhage protocol that is already decreasing our patients’ morbidity related to obstetric blood loss.

Implementing change in any occupation is challenging, but it is especially challenging in medicine where the philosophy “because we’ve always done it that way” often reigns supreme. Linda has successfully achieved buy in from many nurses and doctors on the unit and has planned and lead realistic hospital wide hemorrhage drills that have highlighted areas of improvement. I have personally used the hemorrhage protocol with great success twice this week! But she doesn’t stop there. She is continually eliciting feedback from peers and providers in order to improve our response and outcomes.

I have been a nurse for 11 years and have worked in obstetrics at four other facilities besides MRMC and I have never met a more ambitious, dedicated, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and professional nurse educator than Linda Getchell. She is has an infectious energy that makes you proud to be a part of this team and proud to be a nurse. We are incredibly lucky to have her at our community hospital. She is a true patient advocate. There is no doubt that our best practices here in our MRMC maternity department are in large part due to her indefatigable work and dedication.