Jeanne McAleer - Ohio's Hospice of Dayton

Jeanne McAleer has been a hospice nurse with Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton for 10 years, and her contact with her patients has made as much of an impact on her as it has on them. “No two people live alike,” Jeanne notes. “And, in my current position in Hospice of Dayton, no two people die the same way.” She learns from her patients: “They’ve come to the end of their life, and they have so much knowledge—I call them ‘pearls of wisdom.’ Just having a chat, you can learn so much!” For 30 years, Jeanne has been serving her communities, from Milwaukee to Chicago to Dayton, as a registered nurse. In that time, she has served as a medical-surgical nurse, an orthopedic nurse, a home-health nurse, and twice as a director of nursing in long-term care facilities. And in the middle of it all, she took nine years off from nursing to raise her family. She loves teaching, and during a stint at Kettering Adult School, she wrote the class syllabus and teaching plan for patient aides to become state tested. It is evident by the cards, letters of recognition, and award nominations that Jeanne is a compassionate and empathetic caregiver. “You are helping people every day, and in how many professions can you say that?”