Audio Interviews and Transcripts

Interview with Katie Gilmore
by Hailey Gilmore

This is the interview Hailey conducted with her mother, Katie Gilmore, a seasoned neonatal nurse who began her career in nursing in 1979. Challenges such as new technology and new diseases like HIV presented themselves to her throughout the years, but a focus on ethical patient care seemed to be a constant in Katie's career as a nurse. You can read a part of the interview below in the transcript typed out by the student or listen to the full interview in the audio player below.


Hailey: So it took up a lot of your time?

Katie: It took all of my time and energy. I used to pour myself into it. It was so much fun, and a lot of people said “oh it must be so depressing and sad,” but to me I always felt like we were doing the best for the people, for the parents and the babies, and if they were somewhere else it might not have been…it might not have turned out as well, or we might not be able to facilitate the processes they needed to go through as well. So it was very rewarding.

Hailey: So you said you worked at Yale. Can you tell me a little more about your experience, as a whole?

Katie: When I first went into Yale it was 1980 I think, 81…and umm I went in with a bunch of people and it was just a very new thing to me cause I just worked like I said on a pediatric medical floor, and I was not familiar with all the ventilators, and the monitors. It was a lot of technology to learn, and a lot of um different medications, procedures, and processes, and stuff was merging and changing all the time too. But a lot of us went through it and it was just very exciting, cause everyone just really wanted to be there, and sometimes when you're in a work environment people are like ugh another shift, oh I'm here, but most people were very excited to be there, and enjoyed it…some people had been there for 25 years and still had that attitude, so it was a very progressive pro-worker area…there was always opportunity for advancement if you wanted it, um I always enjoyed doing the actual nursing. I never liked being charge nurse. I always just liked being in the trenches, and doing the stuff myself, and I liked to have one or two really sick babies, or you know do some teaching with some moms, or families on care and medications and things like that.