Celebrating Nurse Maureen’s Half-Century of Commitment

The night shift at Munson Medical Center’s maternity department will be a lot different this September: It will be without longtime Patient Care Coordinator and OB nurse Maureen McLeod, who’s retiring after an impressive 51-year career in nursing. Maureen reminisces on her incredible nursing career—from the changes she’s witnessed to her favorite memories—below.

A Look Back in Time

Maureen graduated from Mercy School of Nursing and started her career at Beaumont Hospital in 1974. After relocating north to Boyne City, she took a job with Charlevoix Area Hospital as an obstetric nurse. “It was an interesting thing. You had two nurses on the afternoon shift; one side was medical pediatrics, and the other side covered surgical patients, the Emergency Department, the recovery room, and OB. That’s where I did all kinds of nursing, every specialty, but my heart drifted to the OB side of things,” she says.

Maureen transitioned to a role with Munson starting on March 3, 1980. “I still have my orientation booklet,” she shares. Aside from a brief stint out west, she’s served patients in Northern Michigan for nearly half a century. After starting in obstetrics, Maureen took a role in perinatal outreach, handling care for women from pregnancy to the weeks a following delivery. Her practice familiarized her with many hospitals that would eventually join Munson Healthcare, from Charlevoix to Cadillac. 

What’s Changed 

“It’s amazing what happened over the last several decades,” Maureen says. “When I was graduating from high school, women did two things: We were either teachers or nurses. And actually, I liked both.” 

Since Maureen started as a nurse, there have been many advances in healthcare technologies, from epidurals (not widely used in the mid-70s) up to today’s digital fetal monitors. The biggest change Maureen has seen, however, has been in the patients themselves. “People can conceive and bear children now who couldn’t back then. This is what sticks in my mind. It’s miraculous,” she says.

Maureen was a pioneer in a few areas, helping to develop a beginner’s course in fetal monitoring, as well as start a pediatric outreach program and a perinatal grief program. “It's a lifelong journey for those moms and families, and we felt it was really important to not just talk about the physical health but also the mental health,” she shares.

Words of Wisdom 

With all her experience, what wisdom would Maureen share with someone just entering healthcare today? 

“I just want people to know that it’s more than a job. You carry things with you. You invest yourself into things, and sometimes it’s just exhilarating,” she said. “It’s sacrificial. It’s emotional—I don’t want to downplay that—but you know that your skills did make a difference. It’s challenging on a lot of levels, but it’s really satisfying, too.” 

Some of that satisfaction certainly stems from OB nursing being a role that necessitates the development of a wide array of skills. “I’m just so proud of OB nursing because we’re not just rocking babies, you know? We’re labor experts. We’re fetal monitoring experts. We’re vascular access experts. If the patient needs a C-section, that nurse goes in and needs to know OR nursing. And then we take the patient to our recovery area, and then you’re a recovery room nurse,” she explained. “The skill set is very complex, and I'm just so proud of all our nurses, and I'm proud to work alongside them.” 

Please join us in celebrating Maureen’s lifelong contribution to nursing, to Munson, and to the thousands of newborns that Maureen has helped bring into the world.