And the winner is... Babies’ nurse Grace Birch


Grace Birch of Port Washington has been named Nurse of the Year for the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton. WELCOMING A CHILD into the world gave Grace Birch a new perspective on being a neonatal intensive care unit nurse. Her daughter Rose is 16 months old. Photos by Sam Arendt
By 
MITCH MAERSCH
Ozaukee Press staff

Grace Birch loves taking care of people.

She thrives on teaching.

And she revels in staying on the cutting edge of her career.

It’s this package of passions that sets Birch apart, which explains her workplace surprise last October.

The registered nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton received an email that all nominees for Nurse of the Year were to get together when the winner would be announced.

“I assumed that all the other nominees got the same email,” Birch said.

“It was a setup for me.”

When Birch walked in, she saw her parents, husband and 13-month-old daughter, along with several colleagues and hospital officials.

Birch won the award.

“I was trying to figure out what was going on,” she said. “I was obviously very surprised.”

More than 1,200 nominations were received for a variety of nurse specialties. Twenty individual and two team awards were presented. Nominations were submitted by clinicians and teammates and reviewed by peer committees.

Birch’s honor was gratifying for the 2012 Grafton High grad who lives in Port Washington.

“We do good work,” Birch said of her department. “I just don’t think it’s as recognized as an adult ICU would be. A lot of people equate NICU with a nursery, but it really is an intensive care unit.”

Infants, she said, come with their own set of issues distinct from adults. Her department cares for babies born prematurely, those who need respiratory support or have blood sugar issues and those with other conditions that threaten their lives and development.

Neonatal care is a good fit for Birch, who grew up with one older brother and four younger ones. Eleven years separates her from her youngest sibling, and she would often babysit him.

It became natural for Birch to go into a caregiving career, “and I love babies,” she said.

Soon after the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton was built, Birch visited what would become her future workplace, although she didn’t know it at the time. Grafton High’s youth options coordinator arranged a tour of the newly opened center located not far from the high school.

“We walked into the atrium with the grand elevators. It looked like a hotel,” Birch said.

By the time came to apply to colleges, Birch had her eye on nursing programs. Health care is in her family. Her mother works in radiation and oncology, and her grandmother was a Cadet Corps nurse during World War II. One of Birch’s brothers is a physical therapist and another recently graduated from dental school in the Army.

“It was always a viable option, a talked-about option,” Birch said of pursuing a career in health care.

St. Louis University allowed Birch direct entry into nursing school, and she took it.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Birch, like other recent grads, wanted the “intense stuff” and worked at a level 4 NICU — the highest care available — at a hospital in St. Louis for a couple of years. Much of what she learned on the job went beyond what nursing school could provide, she said.

She then worked at Children’s Hospital in Wauwatosa for three years before coming to Aurora in Grafton two and a half years ago. She wanted to work closer to home.

“I work with some people I’ve known from years past as a youth in the community. It’s really nice,” she said.

Grafton’s NICU is level 2, but Birch said she still has to use skills learned in higher levels at her other two jobs.

Last year, Birch earned a master’s in nursing education from St. Xavier University in Chicago, opening the doors to teach at an academic facility, in clinics or hospitals or run nursing education programs at a system level.

“I really enjoy teaching and still really enjoy being at the bedside,” she said. “I get to spend time with the families and teach them how to care for their infant.”

Birch also is the primary preceptor nurse who teaches and trains new hires, and she is the charge nurse — the leader of the unit — during her shifts.

She is on a Midwest region NICU subcommittee that addresses practices and new techniques and research, and collaborates with the center’s central line association that works to prevent bloodstream infections.

Last year, Birch also received the Golden Goddess Award, an in-house honor that recognizes those who help mothers with breastfeeding. It’s an experience Birch knows firsthand after having her first child 16 months ago.

“I’m more confident and knowledgeable now,” she said.

Birch has more compassion for what mothers go through during birth.

“If everything goes well there are a lot of emotions,” she said.

“I know that these moments are really special and can be disrupted if the baby’s in the NICU.”

She understands the pull on the heartstrings if parents have to leave their newborns in need of extra care at the hospital overnight. The Grafton facility doesn’t have a place for families to stay.

As for her own family, Birch met her husband-to-be on a mission trip sponsored by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Grafton when she was 21.

She and the coordinator for the trip’s activities in the Dominican Republic, Angel Reyes, hit it off, and the two maintained a long-distance relationship for a while, visiting each other when they could.

Her husband is now is permanent resident of the U.S. and will apply for citizenship. He teaches Spanish at the Milwaukee School of Languages.

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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