a lowcountry life

Handle with Care

Photo by Karyn Iserman

Beth Maier

Labor and delivery nurse Beth Maier puts her patients first.

“Even after eight years, I get so excited at the moment of delivery. It is such a miracle.” Childbirth is an important, life-altering experience. This is a fact not lost on Lowcountry native Beth Maier, a labor and delivery nurse at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital and a mother herself. A short visit with her yields an extraordinary passion for “being part of someone’s miracle.”

Q: How did you find your way to the nursing profession?

Maier: I majored in biology at USC and earned a master’s degree in public health. Later, when I was working at DHEC, I decided to go to nursing school at MUSC. I kept going back to school until I found something I really loved!

Q: What is it about your position that keeps you there? – that motivates you?

Maier: Definitely the patients. I like to talk to them and find out their background. And I love to teach patients how to take care of themselves and the baby. I also love the people I work with. The majority of them have been there since they started nursing 15 to 20 years ago. St. Francis Hospital operates as a family, and they genuinely care. I honestly cannot imagine working anywhere else. Even if I won the lottery, I’d still do it.

Q: What is the most memorable experience you’ve had on the job? – either positive or negative?

Maier: I think any labor nurse will tell you this. Even after eight years, I get so excited at the moment of delivery. It is such a miracle. It’s so amazing to be sharing in the most important part of someone’s life.

Q: How does this job impact your life?

Maier: I get so much personal enjoyment out of this. It’s almost a selfish thing because I get so much from it. It makes me feel good to help someone. I feel like I’m contributing.

Q: You are a “patient advocate.” Is that a title? What does that mean?

Maier: It’s not a title. It just means I work to make sure my patients are getting the best care they can get. Whether it’s finding a sandwich for a mother who has been in labor all day or seeing if a husband can give the baby a bath so they can have the experience they want. It’s important to be a patient advocate because that’s the whole point of being a nurse. In school I thought it would be a skill? – putting in an IV, giving a shot. Now it’s helping.

Photo by Karyn Iserman

Beth Maier

Q: What advice would you give someone hoping to enter your profession?

Maier: When I was in nursing school, I was old enough to recognize the reality of life and death. I wouldn’t have realized that when I was in college. This is not like having to pass history because it’s required. How can you fully grasp the importance of what you’ll be doing when you’re only 19? I just don’t know if they have that maturity yet. I’d want them to understand that you are taking care of someone’s life and it’s really important! It’s more than just a job. If somebody doesn’t deliver the mail, it’ll get delivered next day. But if you give the wrong medicine or don’t recognize that someone isn’t breathing right, that affects someone’s life.

Q: How do you think growing up here has impacted you as an adult?

Maier: Just in the sense that I had all my family here, on both sides. Several generations. I loved that. It made me feel secure. I want that for my kids.

Q: What is the most memorable experience you had that exemplifies growing up in the Lowcountry?

Maier: There was marsh behind my neighborhood, and we’d go crabbing and fishing and come home covered in pluff mud. I also remember my dad teaching me to drive a stick shift. He’d force me to drive up the one little hill in Old Mount Pleasant and rock the car to practice for ultimately driving over the Old Cooper River Bridge. I thought it was funny when people would move here and be terrified of the old bridge.

Q: What do you do for fun and relaxation?

Maier: A lot of reading. I can’t give any of my books away?– I might have to read them again. I also like being outside?– some hunting and fishing. And I’m a rabid, crazy Bon Jovi fan! I’ve been to New Jersey twice to see him and am going to Atlanta to see him. I also love classical music and played the flute growing up. Almost 20 years after high school, I still occasionally have dreams about marching band. I loved it.

Q: When you are 90 years old, what will you tell your grandchildren about what you learned by serving in the nursing profession?

Maier: I think you just learn to value people for who they are. Taking care of someone and seeing we’re all the same regardless of skin color, cultural background, or religion?– we have the same basic needs to be met. All the things you want for your family, they want for theirs too. Each patient is a person who needs to be taken care of and to be loved.

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