By Philip Walzer
Nancy Littlefield (D.N.P. ’13), president and CEO of Hospice of the Piedmont in Charlottesville, still hears it: “Your job must be so depressing.”
“It is anything but,” Littlefield said. “Patients tell us what matters most to them. Those words and their legacies give so much more to us than what we could possibly give to them.”
During an early hospice experience as a nurse, she asked her patient what he still wanted to accomplish. He told her, “I have a $500 bottle of scotch on top of the fridge, and I want to share a toast with you to the amazing life I have had.”
“Here’s somebody who’s facing death, and he wanted to show his gratitude for his life and hospice support. That’s a privilege.”
Littlefield joined Hospice of the Piedmont in October 2023 after serving as executive vice president and chief nursing officer for eight years at Riverside Health System in Newport News, Virginia. “I wanted to spend my last decade of work at something I’m really passionate about,” she said.
The hospice has more than 300 patients, most living at home, and nearly 200 employees. “We are looking for every opportunity to serve, and we want to hire the right people to serve well,” she said. “We want to make sure we’re holding tight to the mission and the values that we hold.”
Littlefield, who wanted to be a nurse since she was a girl, first encountered hospice as an intensive care unit nurse in Prince William County in the 1980s. “I saw the benefits that hospice brought my patients who were facing a life-limiting illness,” she said. “It allowed us time to talk to them as individuals, to respect what they might still want in life, to explore their bucket lists.”
She received her doctorate of nursing practice from Old Dominion University in 2013.
“I wanted to start giving back to the next generation,” Littlefield said. She has been an adjunct instructor at Old Dominion, George Mason, Liberty and Virginia Commonwealth universities. Littlefield also was a member of the advisory board of what is now the Ellmer College of Health Sciences. “I just encourage everyone to reach out to their greatest potential,” she said. “My father raised me to be always an inch away from comfortable. Keep learning. Don’t be bored. Don’t ever say ‘I can’t.’”