Marie Manthey

Manthey received a diploma in nursing from St. Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago, Illinois in 1956. After passing the Illinois State Boards, she joined the University of Chicago Medical Center as a staff nurse, and then became an assistant head nurse and then head nurse on a twenty-bed surgical floor there. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing Administration in 1962 and her Master of Science, Nursing Administration in 1964, both from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing in Minneapolis. Manthey was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1999.

After leaving the University of Minnesota, Manthey became Assistant Administrator and Director of Nursing at Miller Hospital as it merged with St. Lukes to become United Hospitals of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Manthey moved to New Haven, Connecticut in January 1976, and served as the Vice President of Patient Services at Yale New Haven Hospital. During that time in Connecticut she also served as associate professor at the University of Connecticut and associate clinical professor at Yale School of Nursing.

In 1978, she founded a consulting firm specializing in the organization and delivery of health care services. Originally named Creative Nursing Management, now known as Creative HealthCare Management since 2002, headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA.

Manthey provided technical guidance to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for their study of Primary Nursing, published in 1983.

Manthey remained active with the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, including serving as the President of the Nursing Alumni Society from 1999 to 2003.

Throughout her career, Manthey continued to nourish and support the profession of nursing as it continues to evolve.

"The profession of nursing must continue to define itself... Nurses must ask themselves some important questions.. in short, what is the nursing imperative? I would ask you to mount your own inquiry, and come up with your own answers. Here are mine:

"The nursing imperative is a two-sided coin. On one side there is the imperative to be clinically competent in both technical skills and clinical judgement. The other side is the willingness to step in to being with the human being for whom the nurse in caring. In healthcare, people experience vulnerability at every level of their being: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. The privilege of nursing is having the knowledge and skill, the position and relationship, to interact with a vulnerable human being in a way that alleviates pain and increases mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual comfort. This is the privilege of nursing -- the being with a vulnerable human being. If this privilege is ignored or overlooked, nursing isn't happening. No matter what is happening in a care environment, authentic human connection with the vulnerable human beings in our care can and must happen. That, to my mind, is the nursing imperative."