Page 17 - BusinessWest 2023 Healthcare Heroes

HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
spring, she suitably impressed a panel of judges and became part of the 40 Under Forty Class of 2023. And in late October, she’ll accept the Healthcare Heroes award for Emerging Leader.
The plaques on her desk — or soon to be on it — speak to many qualities, but especially an ability to work with others to set, achieve, and, in many cases, exceed goals, not only with lung cancer screening, but other initiatives as well.
Rousou put LeBlanc’s many talents in their proper perspective.
“Before we even had the formal program, I would say something
sort of off the cuff, like, ‘I wish we could do this’ ... and the next week,
I would have the answer, or it would be done,” he said. “Then it turned into ‘OK, let’s try and do this,’ and in the next week or two weeks, it would be done. And then it turned into a situation where she would have an idea and we would talk periodically, but she would take the bull by the horns and just do things that were best for thoracic surgery, but also the screening program.”
“She would take the bull by the horns and just do things that were best for thoracic surgery, but also t”he screening program.
This ability to take the bull by the horns, and many other endearing and enduring qualities, explains why LeBlanc is a true Healthcare Hero.
The Big Screen
There’s a small whiteboard to the right of LeBlanc’s desk. Written at the top are the words ‘World Conquering Plans.’
This is an ambitious to-do list, or work-in-progress board, with lines referencing everything from a cancer screening program for firefighters to something called a Center for Healthy Lungs, which would be ... well, just what it sounds like. “That’s a bit of a pipe dream,” she said. “We’re going to need our own building.”
While it might seem like a pipe dream, if it’s on LeBlanc’s list of things to get done ... it will probably get done. That has been her MO since joining the thoracic surgery practice, and long before that, going back,
for example, to the days when she worked the overnight shift as a unit extender at Mercy until 7, then drive
BusinessWest
to Springfield Technical Community College for nursing classes that began at 8.
“Sometimes, I would snooze in the car for 15 or 20 minutes,” she recalled, adding that she wasn’t getting much sleep at that time in her life. “You just do what you have to do to make it happen.”
Initially, she thought what she wanted to make happen was a career in law enforcement — her father was a police officer in Northampton — but
her first stint as a unit extender at Mercy, while she was attending Holyoke Community College, convinced her she was more suited to healthcare.
But plans to enter that field were put on ice (sort of, and pun intended) when her fiancé, a Coast Guardsman, was stationed in Sitka, Alaska.
She spent three years there, taking
in winters not as bad as most people would think, and summers not as warm as they are here, but still quite nice. And also working for the Department of
Homeland Security as a federal security agent for National Transportation Safety Board at Sitka’s tiny airport.
LeBlanc and her husband eventually returned to Western Mass. after a stint on the Cape, and she essentially picked up where she left off, working as a unit extender at Mercy.
“It was five years later, and it felt like I never left,” she said, adding that she soon enrolled in the Nursing program at STCC and, upon graduation, took
a job on the Intermediate Care floor,
TrinityHealthOfNE.org
Mercy Medical Center is proud to recognize this
year’s Healthcare Heroes and their commitment
to the community.
We are especially proud to congratulate Mercy’s Healthcare Heroes Ashley LeBlanc, Nursing Director of the Lung Cancer Screening Program, and Dr. Mark Kenton, Chief of Emergency Medicine. Thank you for your contributions to our health ministry and your dedication to our Mission!
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