Long-time employee shares in St. Mary Medical Center’s 50th anniversary celebration

When St. Mary Medical Center first opened its doors in February 1973, there were about 100 employees on staff, ready to serve the Bucks County community. Today, only one of those original 100 is still a member of the St. Mary team—and still loving her long and incredible career as a nurse.

Nellie Renn, a lifetime Fairless Hills, Pa., resident who is now a nursing educator at St. Mary, remembers things being quite different at the hospital when she first started in 1973. Back then, female employees wore dresses, nuns filled many of the hospital’s administrative roles, and a Catholic priest would round on each unit every morning, offering Holy Communion to any patients who were interested in receiving it. The hospital also served as a central hub for community members, offering an auditorium and conference room space for local organizations to hold meetings and events.

Fresh out of nursing school in 1973, Renn was first assigned to work in the St. Mary operating room but was always on call to provide help wherever it was needed.

“We kept a white uniform and cap in our locker, just in case we got pulled to another unit,” Renn recalls.

After seven years in the OR, Renn spent a brief period of time as a nurse in the Emergency Department, before settling into a long stretch as a member of the Labor and Delivery team. Helping to deliver babies and caring for mothers on the postpartum unit proved to be the most rewarding and memorable work of her career.

“I still have people come up to me and say, ‘You were my nurse during my delivery,’ and some of those babies are now 40,” says Renn, who has three children herself—all born at St. Mary. “It was a special place to be.”

While technology has advanced, new buildings have been constructed, and care models have evolved, some things still haven’t changed on the St. Mary campus in the decades since Renn’s first days there.

“We’ve always had extremely nice patients, and we’ve always been there for them,” she says. “I’ve enjoyed every day of my career; that’s why I’m still here.”

Those patients have been fortunate to have Renn, along with other incredible nurses, physicians and hospital staff members like her, providing care at St. Mary over the last 50 years.

Happy 50th anniversary to Nellie and St. Mary Medical Center!