Lisa Mountjoy, RN, Receives 2017 Fauquier Health Mercy Award

Lisa Mountjoy, RN, works with Will Brown, an Infusion Center patient who says he is grateful for the wonderful care Mountjoy -- and the Infusion Center -- provides.

There are chairs in Lisa Mountjoy’s life, but she never seems to use them. There are chairs in the Infusion Center where she cares for cancer patients with professionalism and warmth, and at Relay for Life fund raisers where she volunteers tirelessly; there are even rocking chairs on her front porch – which she ignores while baking breads and cookies for patients and their families, for fund raisers, and for her grateful co-workers.

Mountjoy, the 2017 recipient of Fauquier Health’s Mercy Award, has been an RN at Fauquier Health for 47 years. CEO Chad Melton explained in an awards ceremony that “In all that time, she has been recognized by fellow employees and patients alike as tireless, efficient and endlessly nurturing. Mountjoy is known as ‘the best IV starter’ around; anyone who has received multiple painful “sticks” knows the importance of this expertise.”

Mercy Award recipient Lisa Mountjoy, RN, was honored at an awards ceremony at Fauquier Hospital recently.

Mountjoy has also been a mentor and example to dozens of young nurses, sharing the encyclopedic knowledge she has acquired over the years and leading by example. The empathy and kindness that she shows every day to patients is the best lesson of all for those who are just starting out on their nursing careers.

Melton said, “She is an exceptional nurse, efficient and knowledgeable, but the magic happens when she listens to a patient who is explaining their concern over a new treatment or medication. She lets them know they are in it together, and she always finds a way to make them smile.”

When it comes to community, Mountjoy is a giver – to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and fashion show fund raisers, to her church, to anyone who needs a reason to be hopeful. In the nominations received from Mountjoy’s co-workers, her gifts to the community are enumerated: She is an enthusiastic baker and volunteer, and an equally energetic spokesman for the importance of healthy living and diagnostic screenings. She educates her patients, her neighbors, her patients and her church family through one-on-one conversations and more formally, through articles in her church bulletin.”

Mountjoy has seen it all during her long tenure at Fauquier Health. She remembers the early days in the hospital’s Emergency Room. “I remember one man came in who had been hit in the head with an ax. There was a lot of blood, but he was still talking. I held his head together with my bare hands while he was taken to Fairfax. HIV and Hepatitis were unknown back then.”

Now, as then, she is willing to jump in with both feet to save a life. At a recent concert, she used an Epipen to save a stranger who had been stung by a bee. Mountjoy never hesitates, she never rests – she never sits – when others are suffering.

As the Fauquier Health Mercy Award recipient, Mountjoy will attend the LifePoint Health Mercy Award ceremony, and be considered – along with 71 other Mercy Award winners from other LifePoint hospitals -- for the health system-wide award. 

Living the attributes celebrated by the award – compassion, energy, a commitment to community – she has had a lasting effect on Fauquier Hospital -- one smile, one cookie, one life-giving medical intervention at a time.