A reflection on receiving the ‘most prestigious’ award from the University of Minnesota
I felt uncomfortable. I felt like I did not deserve it. That my work was no better or worse than the work of large numbers of other nurses. I felt unworthy. I worried that my ego would be inflated by all the praise and adulation I was receiving during and after the ceremony in which it was awarded.
Later, in moments of quiet reflection and higher consciousness, I saw clearly how to experience this award and how important it is for me to share it with others, you. To explain I want to tell you that throughout my hundreds if not thousands of conversations with nurses, particularly staff nurses, I often experienced a reciprocal sharing of what it means to be a nurse and better still a reciprocal appreciation of the privilege we have in being able to care for humans who are experiencing life vulnerability. The fact that we interact with humans throughout every type of experience a human can have from birth through death and everything in between. I realize that in these conversations our mutual appreciation enhanced the ability of that nurse to go forth in her practice having experienced and shared with me a profound type of inspiration that will benefit future patients cared for by that nurse.
In talking to leaders, I frequently have that same kind of deep reciprocal sharing of the gifts of being able to positively influence the staff being led by this leader.
So my point in all this is I went from feeling unworthy to deeply appreciating the fact that it is the work my colleagues and I have been doing all these years that was being recognized in this award. Furthermore, I re-member that I was given a gift when Florence Marie Fischer colored in my coloring book. That gift is what the award is all about. It is the gift of the privilege to share with thousands of nurses all over the world a mutual awareness of a higher consciousness of the nature of the profession of nursing. I am humbled and honored to accept this OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD in the name of nurses everywhere.
Marie Manthey is an American nurse, author, and entrepreneur. She is recognized as one of the originators of Primary Nursing, an innovative system of nursing care delivery.
“Becoming a Nurse”… at Age Five
I became ill at the age of 5 and was hospitalized for a month at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chicago. It was a traumatic experience in a couple of ways. First of all, my parent’s didn’t know how to prepare me, since they had never been hospitalized themselves.. so they just said I was going to a large building. They left me there for a month, visiting twice a week, and sometimes when one or the other of them came, a very painful procedure was done involving an IM injection of their blood. As a result, I felt not only abandoned but also frightened and confused about the pain associated with their visits.
Florence Marie Fisher is the name of a nurse who cared for me. One day she sat at my bedside and colored in my coloring book. For me, that translated to ‘cared for me’ … and I decided then that I wanted my life to be about that kind of caring.
From that time on I knew I would be a nurse. I entered a hospital diploma program right after high school, and worked for the next four years as staff nurse, assistant Head Nurse, and Head Nurse. During the last of those years I started going to night classes in the community colleges .. not necessarily at first to get my degree.
Early Nursing Career
I enrolled in the degree program at the University of Minnesota, which was one-of-a-kind at that point. After 15 months of full-time study, I received my Bachelors degree in Nursing Administration. Soon after I was recruited into the U of M’s Masters program in Nursing Administration, in what was the last of the 3-quarter Master’s degrees.
Before finishing that degree, I was recruited by Miss Julian to be an Assistant Administrator of Special Projects. This was a new position that gave me an unbelievably valuable opportunity to learn first-hand about leadership and administration. I was able to experience directly not only organizational dynamics, but was also privileged to work with a group of administrators who used Senge’s principles of a learning organization even before he’d written ‘The Fifth Discipline.’
The Birth of Primary Nursing
It was during this time that I became one of two Project Directors for Project 32 (at the University of Minnesota), a pilot program to improve hospital services from an interdisciplinary/interdepartmental perspective. This project eventually morphed in to Primary Nursing, and my career became about understanding and implementing organizational changes that result in the empowerment of employees and the accompanying development of healthy workplace cultures.
Throughout the next ten years of my life in nursing administration – first at another community hospital within the Twin Cities, and then at Yale New-Haven Hospital in Connecticut – I freely helped others with Primary Nursing.. Always accepting visitors and often speaking both locally and nationally as well as publishing as time allowed. I raised my two kids, Claire and Mark, with marriage and then post-divorce.
“My Life Has Become Unmanageable”
During this period of my career, what had been a manageable, socially acceptable level of alcohol consumption escalated in to full-blown alcoholism. There was an intervention and I entered a 6-week residential treatment program on the East Coast, and have been sober ever since. Our family transitioned from substance-based dysfunction to recovery process, which continues through today. I have been and remain very open about my alcoholism and currently am sharing more about it specifically as it relates to the nursing profession, to help others. Here is a link to a video I produced recently for that purpose
In my first year of sobriety as I was feeling my way forward, there were no positions in Nursing Administration available to me. Instead I wrote my initial book on Primary Nursing .. and returned calls to all who had ever asked me to speak, putting out the word that I was available for speaking and consulting. The result was that Creative Nursing Management, Inc. was born, now the longest-running nurse-managed health care consulting firm in the U.S.
When I finished writing Primary Nursing, the publisher asked me who I wanted to dedicate it to.. and that had to be Florence Marie Fisher, the nurse who had colored in my coloring book when I was five. We tried but weren’t able to contact her then, and I actually gave up on ever actually connecting with her.
Building a New Life in Minnesota
My career as a successful entrepreneur has continued ever since. Mark and I came back to Minneapolis, where Claire had already returned to attend the University of Minnesota. We settled back in to this health care-rich, vital community with much better travel connectivity, closer to family, friends and the wonderful professional community of the Twin Cities.
Running a business was not ever something I thought I would do. I didn’t see myself as a businesswoman, but rather as a professional woman. Nevertheless, through many trials and many errors, a viable company gradually came into being. I often say we were successful not because of my business acumen, but rather because my work was authentic and based on real-world realities and values.
The company migrated physically from a small den in the basement of my house, to a photography/commercial tv studio building on the edge of Downtown Minneapolis in 1987. The next location was conveniently close to the airport and the Mall of America. Currently CHCM is headquartered in a virtual/flexible work space in Minnetonka.
I became a grandmother, traveled for work and for fun, remained active in my 12-step community and with my other personal interests. And always stays attuned to the struggles and successes of the Nursing Profession.
Creative Health Care Management
In time we grew into a multi-faceted, multi-national firm called Creative Health Care Management. We have helped hospitals around the word design and implement Primary Nursing systems. We developed Leading an Empowered Organization (LEO), a leadership program that has reached well over 100,000 people around the world.
They say I have conducted seminars for over 1 million nurses. It doesn’t seem like that many, but when I stop to think about it, I realize it may be right.
I sold the firm when I turned 65 (in 2000) to the employees themselves. Now in semi-retirement, I remain involved in the important work of developing nursing practice and improving patient care.. just without the stresses and challenges inherent in leading an entrepreneurial entity.
Co-Founding the Nursing Peer Support Network
An additional aspect of my work today involves tackling the challenge of Substance-Use Disorder. A group of us concerned with the problem of shame and stigma associated with SUD formed a Peer Support Network here in Minnesota, and we are partnering with entities involved in all aspects of the situation.
Ongoing Commitment to the University of Minnesota School of Nursing
Another vitally important component of my professional life today has to do with my involvement with my alma mater. After transitioning away from day-to-day involvement in the running of CHCM, I became active in the Alumni organization at the U of M School of Nursing, and also became an adjunct faculty member there. In 1999 the University of Minnesota awarded me with an honorary doctorate, which was thrilling beyond compare. Today I am also active with the The History Center for the Future of Nursing, and am engaged in other ways as well with the University.
The Never-Ending Conversation: In-Person and Online Nursing Salons
I also continue to be a part of my own and others’ Nursing Salons – a safe space for nurses in all walks of the profession to share conversations and support one another.
As nursing matures as a profession, I am more convinced than ever, that the choice to care – and to express care, competence, and compassion by one’s behavior – is the absolutely correct choice nurses must make in order to continue to serve society justly.
Clinical competence must be on one side of the nursing coin, and care on the other. This is the ‘Coin of the Realm’ nurses must choose if, in fact, the covenant between nursing and society is to continue to exist.