Sister Act
Eileen Mahony has dedicated her life to caring for others
After over 30 years with St. Elizabeth's Health Center in Tucson, Sister Eileen Mahony continues to dedicate her life to compassion and caring for others.
Mahony is a family nurse practitioner at the Health Center, a faith-based health clinic in Tucson that serves patients without insurance or state funded medical aid. In her work at the center, she does exams and helps patients receive the medical care they need. Though she commonly provides care for women, Mahony sees patients of all ages.
She has been involved with women's health at the center and in helping women with breast cancer, including running a support group for women who are both survivors of breast cancer and currently receiving treatment for breast cancer.
Being a nurse has been a calling for Mahony for most of her life.
"Since I was a teenager, I wanted to be a nurse," Mahony said. "I always wanted to be a nurse."
Becoming a nurse has led her to a life of being able to help and care for others.
Before she landed in Tucson, Mahony worked as a missionary in a clinic on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. Civil war in the country forced the missionaries to leave, including Mahony.
After leaving the clinic, she came to Tucson, where she started working with St. Elizabeth's, where she has been since 1985.
Mahony has seen numerous changes to the healthcare field over her time as a nurse at the health center.
"Healthcare was much simpler years ago," Mahony said.
Now, due to the ease of having online records, the health practitioners at the center enter their records on the computer. But Mahony said she prefers to conduct her appointments with patients without a computer in the room because she likes to have the face-to-face contact with her patients.
Once she has finished with a patient, she goes out of the examination room and enters information from her handwritten notes into the computer.
"We do a lot of listening here and people tell us what's going on in their hearts," Mahony said.
Mahony continues to work in healthcare. She chose to be able to continue working at the center two or three days a week. Over the 32 years she has worked at the center, she has maintained the same primary role.
"Because I've been here awhile, I'm seeing third generations and many second generations of children." Mahony said.
When she works with patients at the center, she often finds that they're looking for someone to listen, so she's happy to do just that.
"I feel really good when people understand how to care for themselves and take the steps to do so," Mahony said.
At St. Elizabeth's, the center has traditionally seen patients who are uninsured. More recently, the center has expanded to include patients who are underinsured, as well as patients who are undocumented immigrants.
Mahony said often the pain a patient is carrying is larger than the pain that brought them into the clinic. When she can provide assistance to these patients, she sees the difference it makes to them personally.
"Humble people express gratitude in different ways," Mahony said. "It's the look in their eyes, or releasing the burden of pain."
Mahony also was recently named a finalist for Outstanding Women's Health from the Tucson Local Media 2017 Health and Medical Leader Awards.
"Everything I have done has been in teamwork," she said. "Everything we've accomplished, we accomplished together."
—Leah Gilchrist
