Westmoreland Hospital Auxiliary awards scholarship to nurse Theresa MacBlane

A luncheon at the Greensburg Country Club hosted by the Westmoreland Hospital Auxiliary June 16 celebrated a new scholarship winner 一 its own Excela Health employee, Theresa MacBlane.

“She just stood out,” said Darlene Delaini, auxiliary president. “She was a dynamo.”

MacBlane, 52, of Home, Indiana County, who has worked as a registered nurse for three years, was one of 15 applicants for the $2,500 scholarship, Delaini said.

Normally, the scholarship is only open to high school students in Westmoreland County but Delaini said the auxiliary decided to limit candidates to Excela employees this year because of covid-19.

“It’s a huge vote of confidence that they opened it up to employees after everything we’ve gone through this year,” MacBlane said. “It really shows their appreciation for what we do and for how hard we work to further our careers.”

MacBlane expects to graduate in December with a master’s degree in the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Carlow University, and she works in the 2 East unit at Latrobe Hospital in oncology care, patient hospice and general medical care.

The scholarship will help her offset the costs of continued education, nursing boards and licensing, MacBlane said.

Prior to working at Excela and pursuing continued education, she worked at a laboratory through Conemaugh Health System.

“I honestly didn’t think I was going to get (the scholarship),” MacBlane said. “I just thought I would just try to see if they felt I would be a good candidate.”

MacBlane said she is interested in practicing either rural or LGBTQ medicine in the future.

“Rural communities and the LGBTQ communities are both very marginalized 一 they don’t have a lot of access to health care,” MacBlane said. “There are LGBTQ patients in rural communities that are even more marginalized because they don’t have access to care that is understanding of their needs, culturally sensitive to what they’re going through (or) using the right gender pronouns.”

Jennifer Kettering of Greensburg and Maureen Cutrell of Greensburg were co-chairs of the auxiliary scholarship.

“Her personal statement just stuck out to us 一 that she really was someone who wanted to give back to the community,” Kettering said. “We just are blown away every year with the amount of people that still want to go into health care and really have a desire to give back.”

MacBlane said she believes everyone is worthy of excellent medical treatment.

“Quality medical care is a right, and everyone deserves access to a practitioner who is compassionate, well-trained and accessible to them and their family,” MacBlane said. “I will bring my knowledge, education and experience to the field and look to join a practice whose goals and mission align with mine.”