Women a strong influence in New Ulm healthcare history
It will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows a little about the history of health care in New Ulm that women have always had a strong influence in the leadership of the hospitals.
From the day St. Alexander Hospital opened in 1883, the nuns from the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ ran the hospital and a nun was always the administrator until November 1976 when Barclay Hayes was named administrator. There was a succession of nuns as administrators for 93 years before then. At Union Hospital, Winnifred Schweppe was the administrator from 1952 to 1967.
But history is still in the making today at New Ulm Medical Center (NUMC) where, for the first time, women fill all three major leadership positions. It’s not the first time that a woman has held any one of those positions, but it’s the first time all three are held by women at the same time. Lori Wightman helms the ship as the president of NUMC. Dr. Kellie Newman, one of two general surgeons at the facility, began her tenure as president of the Physician’s Group of New Ulm at the beginning of 2009. At the same time, Jackie Finstad began as chairperson of the NUMC Board of Trustees.
“I don’t think any one of us find it surprising or unusual that we are three women in these positions at the same time,” Wightman said. “We think of ourselves just as people who try to make the best contributions we can. I think what is significant here is that women have always played such an important part in the health care industry in New Ulm,” Wightman said, noting that this hasn’t always been the case in all communities. “The three of us being in these leadership positions at once is the pinnacle of all the contributions of the women who have come before us.”
