LIFE in the CATH LAB

A seasoned pro explains what it takes to thrive professionally where teamwork, communications skills and stamina are crucial.

Seasoned Northside nurse enjoys the teamwork, flexibility and opportunities to learn that are part of the job,

Having been a nurse for more than 20 years —much of that time in cardiac specialties— Bethany Leftwich knows the importance of keeping one’s heart in the game. Where there’s heart, there’s hope. And hope gives her the passion to forge ahead.

As a charge nurse in Northside Hospital’s catheterization laboratory recovery room, Leftwich says the fact many cardiac issues can be remedied brings an air of optimism to her professional world.

“The heart is something we can normally do something about to make people better,” she said. “It’s miraculous at times. …You have people who come in, and they’re almost clinically dead. We work on them, they go to ICU for a couple of days, and then they walk out. …You really feel like you can make a difference.”

Since graduating from the University of Virginia in 1993, Leftwich has found herself making a difference in nursing. After working in a trauma ICU in Washington, D.C., she relocated to Atlanta in 1995 as a nurse in the cardiovascular ICU at St. Joseph’s Hospital. For the next 16 years, she bounced between the cardiovascular ICU and the cath lab. In 2011, she moved to Northside’s cath lab, eventually making her way to cath lab recovery.

“I’ve done all parts and pieces of it,” she said, “whatever fit my family lifestyle at the time. But I’ve always stayed in cardiac.”

Today, working in the cath lab has her arriving early each morning, prepar- ON PAGE

(PHOTO BY PHIL SKINNER) Registered Nurse Bethany Leftwich goes through paperwork at the nurse’s station in the Cardiac Cath Lab at Northside Hospital.