Legere is the winner of this year's Maine Hospital Association Caregiver of the Year Award, presented Wednesday night at the Association's Summer Forum at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.

"Bill establishes amazing connections with his patients," wrote Peggy McRae, RN, director of the emergency department/critical care, in the letter nominating Legere for the Maine Hospital Association's Caregiver of the Year Award. "He takes the extra time to ensure he provides individualized care to them. A frequent scene is seeing Bill kneeling to speak eye-to-eye with a frightened child, being playful and exploring the feelings of this young patient, all with the goal of putting both child and parents at ease."

Sadly, Legere knows the pain of seeing his terribly injured child cared for in the CMMC emergency department. In June of 2008, two of Legere's three daughters were involved in an accident near their home. After many hours, Legere's eldest daughter, Grace, died in his and his wife's arms.

After taking time away, Legere returned to the same emergency department where his daughter took her last breath.

"Bill re-bounded right back into providing the highest level of care to his patients, staying focused on their needs and ensuring he communicated without distraction," McRae wrote.

Legere also returned with a new sense of purpose. He and his wife Theresa founded the Foundation for Hope and Grace, which provides ongoing support for orphanages in Romania, where the Legeres' three children lived before the couple adopted them, and mission trips to impoverished areas of the world. They have helped fund the building of a school in Ecuador and support an orphan care program in Nigeria. Legere has developed a website and created a new action-oriented organization "Live Life with Grace" challenging people to live life beyond themselves for the sake of others and raise support and awareness for vulnerable children. He says the foundation was born in tragedy but is built on hope and goals as they look to make sense of their loss.

Locally, Legere and his family are working with the foster care system, educating area churches about the needs of orphans and creating adoption grants to help families in the adoption process.

Legere does all this while continuing to excel at his hospital job, McRae said. Currently, he is the lead Associate Professional Staff for the ED provider group. He is described by the nursing team, his coworkers and supervising physicians as:

• "Always willing to spend extra time and take the extra steps necessary to ensure that his patients receive the care they need."
  
• "Always calm in a crisis and even-tempered when conflicts arise, de-escalating them quickly."
  
• "Always willing to step up and fill an extra shift or stay late to support colleagues in a busy department."
  
• "Always one of the people you want to work with because he is selfless."

Legere explains his attitude this way, "In a world full of sadness, you can either look the other way or engage the problem. Offering mercy, compassion and love to those who are suffering has brought us more joy than anything else this world offers."

 

Shaping the Future of Health Care
33 Fuller Road • Augusta, Maine • 04330 • tel 207-622-4794 • fax 207-622-3073