Photo by Joe Howell
Patty Hofstetter, BSN, RN, CPHQ, recently retired as Senior Quality and Safety Advisor for VUMC after 41 years as a nurse. She came to Vanderbilt as a teenager and never left. When she started as a nurse in 1977, there were only two Medical Center buildings – the old Vanderbilt University Hospital (now Medical Center North) and Light Hall.
When did you first decide you wanted to be a nurse?
I was in high school and my brother was in medical school at the time. He would come back home with all these really neat stories. I’m thinking, “You know, I might want to be a nurse.” I said, well, let me be a candy striper. Let me see what that’s like. So I came here, and I loved it.
What brought you to work at Vanderbilt?
I’m from Nashville, and most of my family attended Vanderbilt University. This is where we all went. It was sort of a given. You know, they have a really good nursing school here. Why go anywhere else?
What areas of Vanderbilt have you worked in?
When I graduated I went to a surgical floor (in the old Vanderbilt University Hospital, currently Medical Center North), then I went to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and Cardiac Recovery. I was a research nurse for several years and I worked with the arrhythmia team. From there, I went to clinic administration and to Quality, Safety and Risk Prevention.
What has been your biggest joy as a nurse?
There’s really not one, because in every area that I’ve gone, there have been really good things. I remember when I first graduated from nursing school and we would go out as a team and have a wonderful time. I remember when we moved all the patients over with the National Guard to the new hospital. I watched all the buildings being built on campus, which was fun.
What has been your biggest challenge?
The surveys. I think what I will always remember 2008, when we had The Joint Commission, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration – everybody you could think of was here, surveying.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I like to work in the garden. I love to knit. I love being with family (husband, Bill, and daughter, Mary Katherine) and hiking. I have five brothers and sisters who all live here. Mary Katherine is in medical school at University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.n
