Lynda Goldthwaite’s introduction to the field of nursing started at birth.
For as long as she could remember, she lived with her grandparents. She grew up in a three tenement house in Massachusetts, where she and her family occupied the second floor, her grandparents lived on the first floor and her great-grandmother lived on the third floor.
When her family moved to New Hampshire in Goldthwaite’s preteens, her grandparents moved to the house’s in-law suite. When her grandmother got sick, Goldthwaite remembers visiting her grandmother in the hospital.
“We made sure she still got those things in her life that were super important,” she said. “If she didn’t have a hot cup of coffee every morning, she wouldn’t have a good day.”
Goldthwaite said she thinks that experience is partly responsible for her career path. Sometimes when she’s caring for residents, she calls on memories from those days in the hospital.
“That’s really where all this passion comes from,” she said. “Those relationships are crucial.”
Forty years into her career as a licensed nursing assistant, Goldthwaite has worked in nearly every facet of the industry – from hospitals to small family practices to care facilities. Now, she serves as the administrator of Pleasant View Center in Concord.
One of her favorite roles is as an advocate for caregivers. Since she joined the workforce, she said she’s seen the staffing shortage steadily widened – there just aren’t as many people going to school for nursing, she said.
By volunteering with the New Hampshire Health Care Association, the Long Term Care Foundation, and the Sector Partnership for Healthcare, she dedicated herself to correcting this trend. She advocates for training programs at local community colleges, online courses to certify caregivers, and funding to help nursing assistants pursue more education.
How does she balance this with her full-time job? When you feel as passionately as Goldthwaite feels about nursing, you just care all the time, she said.
“I’ve had a very long and very satisfying career,” she said. “I see the potential for so many people to have the type of career that I’ve had.”