‘The love of nursing’: Lake Forest Hospital’s chief nurse reflects on four decades of service

LAKE FOREST – When Denise Majeski first started as a nurse at Lake Forest Hospital, she remembers a chef in the hospital’s kitchen celebrating his 40th anniversary on the job.

“Who in their right mind would work for one organization for 40 years?” she asked herself at the time.

“Now here I am,” said Majeski, who recently celebrated her 40th anniversary at the hospital. “It went by in the blink of an eye.”

In the past four decades, the 65-year-old Majeski, the hospital’s chief nursing officer and its first endowed chief nurse executive, has helped lead the hospital through numerous challenges.

Among those challenges are the evacuation of the former Lake Forest Hospital after a flood in 2017, the activation of a new Lake Forest Hospital in 2018, a switch to a new electronic medical record-system and, most recently, management of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Overcoming each and every challenge has required teamwork, she said.

“The practice of nursing is team-driven. And if you’re in leadership, you understand the value of each person’s role in the care of the patients,” she said. “You realize you can’t do it all. You have to have a team and engagement to drive improvement and achieve the outcomes we’re asked to do in health care.

“When I hire, I usually make a point of asking if they’ve played team sports. Some of my strongest leaders have all played team sports.”

For Majeski, of Gurnee, it was basketball, track and field and volleyball as a young girl. She went on to play basketball as an undergraduate student studying nursing at Lewis University in Romeoville.

She wanted to be a basketball coach, but her mother suggested she study nursing to “take care of her in her old age.”

“I found out I really love nursing. I love the art. I love the science, being able to have relationships with my patients,” she said.

‘Step up to the plate’

Nurses put themselves at harm’s risk for those relationships, a sacrifice even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. She credits preparation and adequate personal protective equipment for the hospital’s ability to keep its staff as safe as possible.

Majeski said only two nurses on the staff contracted coronavirus from potential exposure at work. Both have recovered.

To her, the pandemic is just part of the “cycle of health care.”

“We’re always going to have disaster, pandemics. It’s just a matter of how do you prepare. How do you have a great plan to meet the needs of the patients and the community you’re serving. Once you’ve been in leadership, you’ve seen enough of those challenges that you can meet whatever the predicament is head-on,” she said.

“I’ve never seen health care workers not step up to the plate. They step up and win.”

From evacuating the hospital during a flood, to the AIDS crisis, to anthrax, to Ebola and now COVID-19, health care workers work at their peak efficiency during a crisis, Majeski said.

Nurses have fears of their own while caring for patients with unknown conditions, she said.

“What always comes to the forefront is the nurse’s desire to help, to deliver passionate care,” she said. “They put themselves at harm’s risk to do that. That’s why they went into the profession of nursing. … That’s our goal as nurses. And that’s the love of nursing.”

A role model

Upon graduating from Lewis University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Majeski started her nursing career in the oncology department and later became a charge nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. The hospital shared a medical director with Lake Forest Hospital at the time and he arranged an interview for her at Lake Forest.

She became a staff nurse at Lake Forest Hospital in April 1980. By September of that year, she was in charge of her unit and worked in numerous roles through the years. In 2010, she graduated from Purdue University with a master’s degree and soon became chief nurse.

“It was something I never wanted to do,” she said.

A mentor told her at the time, “Denise, you always want to be in charge. Step into this role and you’ll have the power and authority to make changes.”

“I can’t argue with that,” she responded.

Lake Forest Hospital opened a new hospital building in 2018 after joining Northwestern Medicine in 2010.

With Majeski at the helm, the hospital has earned three Magnet designations by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, considered the gold standard of nursing. The designations must be recertified every five years, with Lake Forest earning its most recent redesignation this year. Only 523 hospitals – 9% nationwide – have achieved Magnet status.

It’s quite an honor, but Majeski’s proudest achievement is a recent staff-awarded Lifetime Daisy Achievement Award.

“To be able to be a role model to them in delivering compassionate, kind care, to me is probably truly the greatest recognition I’ve ever received,” she said.