Peggie McCarthy-Mogan is joined by her family as she accepts a Lifetime Achievement Award.

When she was 14 years old, Peggie McCarthy-Mogan, MS, RN, began volunteering in the Emergency Room at Boston City Hospital, unaware that this opportunity would ultimately spark a 51-plus year career in the nursing profession.

“I didn’t have any nurses in my family and didn’t know anything about the field,” she recalled. “I started volunteering, running bloodwork to the labs from the ER, collecting specimens and doing other errands for the staff. That’s where I first got a glimpse at nursing and knew it was what I wanted to do.”

Since that time, McCarthy-Mogan earned her diploma, bachelor’s and master’s degree and has held numerous clinical nursing, educator and leadership roles at Boston hospitals, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital.

In October, she was celebrated for her half-century of contributions to the profession and the care of patients with the Frances Slanger Lifetime Achievement Award from the alumni of Boston City Hospital’s School of Nursing, where she earned her diploma.

Peggie McCarthy-Mogan currently teaches nursing orientation sessions at BWH.

“It was an honor,” she said. “I told my fellow alumni that what I learned in school prepared me not just for my nursing career, but also for life. And that what I’ve learned from my colleagues along the way has made the greatest impact on my career.”

McCarthy-Mogan has spent most of her career at BWH in numerous roles, including nurse administrator, nurse educator for the Emergency Department and Medicine units, staff nurse in the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit, and nurse-in-charge on a medical cardiac intermediate unit, as well as a representative for Patient Access Services. Though she is “semi-retired,” McCarthy-Mogan is currently a program manager in the Center for Nursing Excellence and runs four orientation sessions per month for newly licensed nurses.

“I love meeting the new nurses and imparting what I’ve learned and what’s worked for me,” she said. “I always encourage them to keep their focus on the patient and to be a lifelong learner. So many things I learned in school we have since abandoned as new evidence emerges. You have to be able to roll with the changes and do new things.”

Peggie’s Pins

Some of McCarthy-Mogan’s favorite moments as a clinical nurse at BWH involved tending to her patients’ spiritual needs.

Peggie McCarthy-Mogan accepts her award.

She would often wear an angel pin clipped to her scrubs. Twice, she gave her pin to patients awaiting transplant.

“The first was a man awaiting a liver transplant who got a ‘pass’ to leave the hospital with his family for the day,” she recalled. “He had been waiting for an organ donor for some time, and it didn’t seem like it would happen. I gave his wife the pin, and an hour after they’d left, the call came in that there was a donor.”

This happened a second time with a patient awaiting a heart transplant. “Then word got out, and I started getting calls for my angel pins!” McCarthy-Mogan said.

Today, in addition to her nursing role, McCarthy volunteers weekly in BWH Spiritual Care, visiting with patients and offering communion to Catholic patients. “I love continuing to see patients in this role,” she said. “For many of the patients I visit, spirituality is part of their core being, as it is for me.”

Most Memorable Moments

Peggie McCarthy-Mogan received the Essence of Nursing Award at BWH in 2001 while she was a clinical nurse in the Neurosciences ICU – her “most humbling” role.

McCarthy-Mogan also found deep satisfaction in her role as an educator in the ED and Medicine.

“Medicine was so exciting because I’d hear of new diagnoses all the time and I would learn about them so I could be a resource to staff,” she said. “Staff were always happy to see me coming because I was there to support them.”

Her greatest challenge? Becoming a clinical nurse in the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit in her 50s. “That was humbling, but I wanted to learn new things,” she said.

Not only did she learn new things, but she was also recognized for the outstanding, compassionate care she provided to patients in the Neurosciences ICU as the recipient of the 2001 Essence of Nursing Award – the Department of Nursing’s highest honor for clinical nurses.

During her speech at the annual Nurse Recognition Dinner that year, McCarthy-Mogan addressed her peers, sharing the following: