Kathy Seubert retires after 37 years at hospital
After nearly four decades at St. Mary's Health, longtime nurse Kathy Seubert reflects on a career shaped by faith, friendship, and a calling to serve others.
In 1989, a young, newly registered nurse named Kathy Seubert asked Sister Agnes Reichler, then Director of Nursing at St Mary’s Hospital, if she had a position available.
"She said, 'Sure.' That was my interview," Kathy recalls with a laugh.
And just like that, a remarkable 37-year career began.
Kathy started on the night shift, just a few years out of nursing school, in a hospital that looked and operated very differently from the St. Mary's Health we know today. Over the decades that followed, she would grow alongside the organization, take on numerous nursing and leadership roles, develop lifelong friendships, and care for generations of patients and families throughout the community.
But ask Kathy what has mattered most throughout those years, and her answer has little to do with titles, technology, or the many changes she's witnessed in healthcare.
For Kathy, it has always been about service.
When Kathy began her career at St. Mary's, rural healthcare was a different world. The hospital regularly cared for 10 to 15 inpatients, performed a wide variety of surgical procedures, and delivered as many as 120 babies in a year.
"We were just more hometown general practitioners taking care of what they could," she remembers.
Nurses were expected to develop broad clinical skills, and the opportunities to learn were seemingly endless. From assisting with surgeries to caring for critically ill patients and delivering babies, the experience was both demanding and rewarding.
Over the years, Kathy's career took her through numerous nursing roles, including bedside nursing, obstetrics, surgical nursing, nursing leadership, and case management. Each brought new challenges and opportunities to serve.
But something else was happening along the way. Kathy and many of her colleagues were building more than careers. They were building lives together.
"We all just kind of grew up together," she says, remembering the physicians, nurses, and other caregivers who became such an important part of her life.
They celebrated milestones, raised their children, supported one another through difficult times, and shared countless holidays working when they would otherwise have been home with their families.
When asked about her favorite memories, Kathy doesn't point to one extraordinary event. Instead, she remembers the little things: Christmas dinners shared in the hospital kitchenette, friendships formed during long shifts, and the people who became like family.
Those relationships, she says, are among the greatest gifts of her career.
Perhaps the most powerful reflection Kathy shared during her retirement interview was how her understanding of nursing has evolved over the years.
"When I first started, my thing was, 'Oh, I want to care for people. I love caring for people,'" she explains. "But as you mature and grow in your career and your faith, you want to serve people."
It's a distinction that has become the foundation of her personal and professional philosophy.
"There's a difference between caring and serving," Kathy says. "That's what my whole base is. Service."
For Kathy, nursing has never been simply a collection of clinical skills or responsibilities. It is an opportunity to use the gifts she believes God has given her to make a difference in someone else's life.
That philosophy has followed her through every role she's held, whether caring for patients at the bedside, serving as a nursing leader, or helping someone over the telephone.
Even as her responsibilities changed, her purpose remained the same: to recognize the person behind the patient and find a way to help.
In 37 years, Kathy has seen tremendous advances in medicine, technology, and the delivery of healthcare. But she also believes there are important lessons from earlier generations that shouldn't be forgotten.
Her advice to nurses beginning their careers today is simple: never allow technology to overshadow the human connection at the heart of healthcare.
"There's a human aspect in our career," she says. "There's more to it than technology and skills."
While she recognizes the extraordinary capabilities that modern technology brings to healthcare, she hopes future generations of caregivers never lose sight of what makes the profession so special.
"Just the human approach to healthcare," she says when asked what she hopes St. Mary's never loses. "AI and technology have their place. They do. Just don't lose that."
Over nearly four decades, Kathy has experienced countless changes in leadership, organizational structure, and healthcare itself.
Through it all, one thing kept bringing her back.
"The whole principle is still going back to service to others," she says. "That's what got me in my car every day to come here."
And she wasn't alone.
Kathy speaks fondly of the many longtime caregivers who remained committed to St. Mary's through years of change, including colleagues whose dedication helped create the close-knit culture that continues to define the organization.
"We connected to each other to serve, and that's what our whole main purpose is."
And it's why, when asked what she will miss most, her answer comes without hesitation.
"Of course, the work family."
After spending nearly four decades caring for others, Kathy is looking forward to spending more time with the people closest to her.
That includes her husband, daughter and son-in-law, and especially her two grandchildren in Coeur d'Alene. She's also looking forward to the simple pleasures of being home, working in her garden, painting, and enjoying a little more freedom to choose how she spends her days.
But don't expect Kathy to view retirement as the end of her calling to serve.
"I just feel like I've been doing that the last 40 years, and I feel like I just need a different way," she says. “I’m just thankful that I had a place of employment and my work family helped me raise my family, my daughter, our kids together," she reflects. "And it was fun doing that."
Thirty-seven years ago, Kathy Seubert began a nursing career with a simple conversation and an opportunity to work the night shift. She couldn't have known then how many lives she would touch, how many friendships she would build, or how deeply St. Mary's would become woven into the fabric of her life.
Because while Kathy may be retiring from St. Mary's Health, the spirit of service that has defined her career isn't retiring with her.
From all of us at St. Mary's Health, thank you, Kathy, for sharing your gifts, your heart, and your life with us. You've helped make St. Mary's what it is today, and you will always be part of our family.