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Nursing Spectrum VP, Professional Services, Cynthia Vlashich, RN (left), congratulates AONE 2004 Aspiring Nurse Leader Award winner Francine Westergaard, RN, BSN.

In Field of Dreams, actor Kevin Costner’s character built a baseball diamond on his farm because he heard voices telling him that if he built it, “they” would come.

Francine Westergaard, RN, BSN, must experience the same depth of inspiration because she does much the same, but in the setting of Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital, Oak Lawn, Ill.

The manager for the neonatal pediatric transport team, pediatric ICU, and pediatric surgical heart unit, Westergaard is known as the facilitator — the nurse who stands by a good idea and builds the team of people needed to help make it happen.

She has been behind the development, building, and management of many significant programs at the children’s hospital.

Her passion for leading others through change earned Westergaard distinction as the 2004 The American Organization of Nurse Executives Aspiring Nurse Leader award winner. Westergaard was selected by the AONEboard because she best personified a leader for the future in nursing.

The AONE award is sponsored by NURSING SPECTRUM.

“We are delighted to recognize Francine Westergaard as the 2004 Aspiring Nurse Leader. Our future depends on leaders like Francine, and we are grateful for her dedication to the field,” says AONE CEOPamela Thompson, RN, MS, FAAN.

Linda Rivard, RN, BSN, nursing coordinator for the pediatric oncology survivorship in transition program at Advocate Hope, says Westergaard is an advocate and facilitator.

When Rivard approached Advocate Hope about starting a pediatric oncology survivorship program so that local childhood cancer survivors would continue to get medical, psychosocial, and neurocognitive support, Westergaard listened. Rivard told her story about being the mother of a son, 13, who was treated for cancer at Advocate Hope and later transferred to Milwaukee Children’s for a transplant. Milwaukee Children’s had such a program, and Rivard wanted to bring the idea to Oak Lawn.

Westergaard “believed in me and believed that my experience, that what I went through with my son, could never be learned in a classroom. She was my advocate,” says Rivard. “She helped me facilitate it, put it into place, and helped me navigate the system.”

A nurse first

Westergaard always wanted to be a nurse, and she has a picture to prove it. The 45-year-old displays a black-and-white photo from when she was 5 or 6 and dressed in white cowboy boots and a nurse’s uniform. “It was Christmas. You put everything on that you get for Christmas,” she says.

Westergaard was the oldest of five children, so care taking came as nothing new. Growing up on the Chicago’s southwest side, Westergaard says her paternal grandmother was a housekeeper in a local hospital.

“It was probably one of the proudest days of her life when I graduated [from nursing school],” she says.

Westergaard graduated 20 years ago from a diploma program at the Evangelical School of Nursing, Oak Lawn. She returned to get her bachelor’s degree in 2002 from Lewis University, Romeoville, and is pursuing her master’s in nursing.

A pediatric nurse for 20 years, she has worked in neonatal intensive care, general pediatrics, pediatric rehabilitation, and pediatric critical care. She left once after a long stint in pediatric critical care because she says she had reached saturation, but returned to her pediatric roots after only eight months in IV therapy and pain management.

“Now, I’m at peace with it,” she says. “I know this is what my calling is.”

Building it so they come

Westergaard says she enjoys team building. She steps up to the plate, without receiving extra pay, when interim management positions open up, so that she can instigate fresh thinking and change. That often involves taking people out of their comfort zones.

The staff who nominated her for the AONE award are members of the neonatal pediatric transport team, which began at Advocate Hope in 1997. Westergaard established the dedicated freestanding transport team and turned it into the busiest pediatric transport team in the state.

While interim manager for the pediatric ambulatory care department in 2002 to 2004, Westergaard helped to spearhead and manage the building of the 8,000-square-foot Keyser Pediatric Cancer Center. Westergaard volunteered last year to be interim manager for the pediatric intensive care and surgical care units after the previous manager resigned, and she’s had the role ever since.

“We’re going to be opening five new beds either the end of this year or next year,” she says. “I like growth opportunities.”

The responsibilities, she says, give her an appreciation for the big picture.

“When you limit yourself to one field, you don’t realize or appreciate what the other departments’ needs and requirements are. It’s only through working with them daily that I can appreciate now why we do the things that we do,” she says.

Westergaard, a mother of three (her eldest is an ED nurse), also volunteers her time outside the hospital. She is a member of the Illinois national faculty for pediatric advanced life support for the American Heart Association, and in that role, she fields questions about pediatric life support. She also helps put on an annual conference.

Pediatric advanced life support is dear to Westergaard’s heart, she says — after all, it has helped save children’s lives and has changed outcomes for children dramatically during the last 15 to 20 years.

Westergaard, a volunteer for the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team, is among those poised to respond to a disaster and to ensure that the team has expertise in pediatrics. She also helps to educate paramedics because she believes it’s important that these first-responders are comfortable with caring for critically ill pediatric patients.

“I feel it’s very important that we do whatever we can to facilitate education for pediatric critical care with anybody who will listen to us on the health care team,” she says.

Connecting by believing

Westergaard says that by listening to people, she is better able to recognize those who have ideas and the dynamic personalities to make those ideas happen.

The listening allows Westergaard to put people in the “right” roles so they can excel. She says her leadership is often a matter of putting people in touch with the right resources so that they feel good about their own growth, and “that all just builds on the children’s hospital and makes it a better place.”