Aurora Nurse Turns Patient, Guides Own Care Team at Anschutz with Calm Expertise
AURORA — When longtime Aurora resident and retired ICU nurse Margaret Pike found herself in a bed at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital last month, the roles reversed in a way only the Anschutz Medical Campus could script. Admitted for a complex vascular procedure, Pike didn’t just tolerate the chaos of a busy teaching hospital—she directed traffic.
“Ms. Pike was not just cooperative but was helping to instruct the people placing the IV lines as to where they might put them,” her attending physician noted in the chart, a line that has since made the rounds in the nurses’ station on Unit 7.
For the 25-55 crowd raising families near the Fitzsimons Innovation Community or commuting down Colfax, it’s a familiar kind of Aurora pride: deep medical expertise living right next door. Pike, who spent 30 years at the old Fitzsimons Army Medical Center before it transitioned, knows the campus tunnels, the parking garage quirks, and the vascular anatomy better than most residents half her age.
“She knew her basilic vein was the only viable access left,” said Jenna Morales, RN, the charge nurse that shift. “She talked the resident through the ultrasound landmarks like a preceptor. It was the smoothest difficult stick I’ve seen in years.”
Pike credits her “muscle memory” and the exceptional training pipeline at Anschutz. “These residents are sharp,” she said from her recovery room, already critiquing the Jell-O selection. “They just need someone to point out the roadmap sometimes.”
For a city built on medical innovation, it’s a reminder that the best care often happens when patients are partners. And in Aurora, sometimes the expert is the one in the gown.
