Community Hospital Nurse of the Year: Lucy Luke, R.N.

Compassionate, caring, and a natural

Admittedly, her first choice was journalism. Her parents, however, had set their sights and their backing on a medical career for their daughter. So she opted for nursing, training at Saint Francis Hospital’s three-year program in San Francisco. Two years later, she went to work as a bedside nurse at Community Hospital. Nearly 32 years later, Lucy Luke is retiring with the distinction of Nurse of the Year, an honor bestowed upon her in May by her peers. Clearly, her parents were on to something.

“Actually,” says Luke, “I think I was a natural. I took care of sick animals as a kid, and I still do. Birds seem to fall out of trees just to land at my feet. I think what’s been most important is that I could make a difference in a person’s experience, no matter what it is. I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction out of that. I’ve never considered my job difficult; I’ve gotten as much back as I’ve given. That’s why I think I was born to do this.”

Luke, who recently retired her post in outpatient surgery, believes she was named Nurse of the Year partially because she has remained a bedside nurse throughout her career, rejecting the notion to go into teaching or administration.

“ You know how those old Hollywood people get the Lifetime Achievement Award at the end of their careers?” she says. “Well maybe I got an award because I’ve been at it so long.”

“Lucy exhibits excellence at the bedside — excellent clinical skills in each of the areas she has worked at Community Hospital, uncompromising ethical standards, enthusiasm, and passion for patient care,” says Terril Lowe, R.N., Community Hospital vice president of nursing. “She is the kind of nurse we all strive to be.”

Luke says the award was “really very touching, partially because several of the other nominees were people I have known and worked with for my entire career at Community Hospital, people I have a lot of respect and admiration for. Everyone has had an influence on who I ended up being. The competition for this award was awesome. For me to get it was very meaningful and touching.”