Kathy Quinn, RN, BSN, OCN, is the gynecology-oncology nurse navigator at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, NH, an acute care hospital serving the coastal communities of New Hampshire and Southern Maine.
Kathy assists in running the entire program. A partial list of her all-encompassing job description includes scheduling patients and surgeries, following up on test results, seeing patients for wound or catheter checks and taking calls. A few times a month, I join her on-site from Mass General. Otherwise, she runs the program on her own.
Fortunately, Kathy cares deeply about her patients. She routinely goes above and beyond to provide them with the best possible care experience. On the days I join her, she schedules appointments to 7:00 pm even though all of her colleagues have left for the day.
Kathy provides extraordinary care. She has driven patients across town so they would not miss a train, taken patients who would otherwise be alone out to dinner on birthdays, visited those on hospice care in their homes and frequently comforted a distraught partner or family member whose loved one is dying in the hospital.
Patients and their families know that Kathy is the go-to person for anything they need. She combines warmth, a ready smile and a sense of humor with tremendous clinical skills. Kathy is our hero.
– John Schorge, MD, Chief, Vincent Gynecologic Oncologic Division, Massachusetts General Hospital
