UW Health Careers HomeOur Working Mothers - Sarah Doerr, LPN, General Surgery
Another one of our moms, Sarah Doerr, has worked in our general surgery unit as a LPN for the last four years.Sarah appreciates how flexible her manager is with shifting her hours to accommodate her changing needs. When Sarah was pregnant, she was able to work full-time daytime hours. When she gave birth to her son, she was grateful that the combination of the sick leave time she had saved up and her Income Continuation Insurance offered by UW Hospital and Clinics provided her with half of her 12-week leave as paid time off.
When she returned to work, her manager allowed her to reduce her schedule to work 24 hours a week and accommodated Sarah’s request to work evening hours. Once her son was in day care, Sarah increased her hours to 32 per week and began working daytime hours again.
Sarah is now back in school to become a registered nurse (RN). While she admits that juggling motherhood, work and school takes a lot of organization and help from her husband, UW Hospital and Clinics has made her dream a reality by paying for her schooling in its entirety through its generous tuition reimbursement program. With her class load recently increasing, Sarah’s manager once again showed her commitment to Sarah by allowing her to reduce her hours to just 20 per week.
Sarah says, “Given the nursing shortage today, I could easily get a job at a hospital a lot closer to home, but I see no reason to leave. They’ve taken such good care of me. Some of my co-workers, who are also working moms, live 90-120 minutes away. When I first started working here, before I had kids, I thought they were crazy, but now that I’ve worked here awhile, I know why they do it.”
