Page 28 - Healthcare Heroes 2025

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A P R O G R A M O F B U S I N E S S W E S T & H E A L T H C A R E N E W S
Cindy Leonard with Dr. Philip Glynn.
Staff Photo
hospital in New Jersey.
She would remain there until her family relocated to Western
Mass. in 2001. Soon thereafter, she met Glynn, who happened to
have an opening for a nurse in his oncology clinic at Noble Hospital
in Westfield. The two have been working side by side ever since, with
Glynn moving his practice to Mercy in 2012, and Leonard moving with
him.
Since then, they have been part of continued expansion of the
medical oncology center and witnesses to dramatic changes and new
treatments for patients, especially immunotherapy.
“One of the beautiful things about immunotherapy is that it doesn’t
make people sick; it’s not traditional chemotherapy where people are
nauseous, vomiting, tired, and weak,” she explained. “This, along with
other advances in cancer care, is one of the things Dr. Glynn and I
reflect on a lot; we’ll say, ‘who would have thought 15 years ago that
patients would be taking a medicine that doesn’t make them sick?’”
At the center, Leonard handles myriad responsibilities that fall into
the categories of management and patient care, and she handles both
with professionalism and enthusiasm.
During a typical 10-hour day that starts at 7:30 a.m., she will create
a scheduling grid for all infusion and acute visits, 65 to 80 a day on
average — a complex assignment.
“On any given day, there’s 10 to 12 nurses, and when you print
the schedule, you assign a patient to a nurse every 30 minutes to an
hour based on the acuity of the patient because they’re all here for a
different reason,” she explained. “Some of the patients sit here all day
and receive multiple medicines, which require a lot of coordination
from the nurse, and others are here for only an hour, so the schedule has to
be done fairly.”
Patients start arriving around 8, and they come in continuously over the
course of the day, she went on, adding that physicians will call throughout
the day with requests to add people to the schedule because they’re not
feeling well.
Leonard also assures that all infusion, injection, and transfusion therapies
are complete and have undergone prior authorization to obtain insurance
approval, ensuring that the services are properly ordered to account for any
change in clinical parameters and that they are fully reviewed and approved
by physicians. Treatments often require coordination with other service
needed to get to their daughter’s wedding, for example. If you’re able to be
a small part of them achieving that goal ... there’s no reward greater than
that.”
With that, she summed up why she loves what she does and why, at
age 63, she’s not even thinking about retirement. For some sentiment
on why those who work with her don’t want to see that day either, and
what Leonard brings with to work every day, we turn to Dr. Philip Glynn, a
Healthcare Hero himself in the Provider category (class of 2022), who has
worked beside Leonard for 25 years now.
“Over her 40-year career, Cindy has shepherded hundreds of souls on
their cancer journey, helping them navigate care as part of a club no one
wants to join,” he said. “Sitting for hours in an infusion chair can be lonely,
and Cindy not only makes sure patients feel heard during treatment, she
also ensures that they are well cared for and comfortable. This is not an
easy job, especially when outcomes are so often unfortunate. Still, Cindy is a
fierce advocate for patients, and she handles the heavy burden of their care
with grace and humility.
“At her core, Cindy is probably one of the kindest people anyone could
meet, and couple that with ... let’s call it unconditional empathy for people
— she is the absolute example of a servant leader,” Glynn went on. “People
around her, the nursing staff around her, they want to emulate her; I’ll bet
every nurse there would say that Cindy is a role model.”
Such sentiment explains why Leonard is now also a Healthcare Hero.
Unconditional Caring
Like many previous honorees, as well as several members of the class
of 2025, Leonard would qualify to be a Healthcare Hero in a number of
categories, including — given how long she has been doing this — Lifetime
Achievement.
But Provider seems most fitting because she is perhaps best noted for
what she brings to, and does for, patients who come to the infusion center,
where more than 17,000 treatments are provided annually.
“Her empathy for people going through the biggest life challenges
imaginable ... it knows no limit,” Glynn said. “It’s what I would call
unconditional caring — she’s universally kind, professional, and thorough
with everyone. And patients get it; they gravitate toward her.”
And they have done so for decades now.
Indeed, Leonard has been an oncology nurse for nearly the entirety of a
40-year career in nursing. When she graduated from the College of Mount
St. Vincent in the Bronx, N.Y., she knew she wanted to work in pediatrics.
“But those jobs are few and far between — that’s what most people
want,” she recalled, adding that it took her three years to get into that
specialty, and when she did, in 1987, it was in pediatric oncology at a
“People around her, the nursing staff around her,
they want to emulate her; I’ll bet every nurse there
would say that Cindy is a role model.”
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2025 lines, such as radiation oncology, surgery, or intervention radiology, and she
said she oversees all this while taking on her own patient load.
Meanwhile, on the more administrative side, she collaborates with
medical management, Joint Commission representatives, the cancer
committee, and Mercy’s Education department to create annual
competencies for nursing staff.
And she brings to all these responsibilities what Glynn called a ‘servant
leader’ mentality. “She doesn’t back away from hard problems, she doesn’t
back away from big responsibilities, and yet, there’s no job that’s too small.”
Navigating the Journey
But those who know Leonard will say that it’s not what she does that sets
her apart and makes her a Healthcare Hero, but how she does it.
“The moment you hear, ‘you have cancer,’ that phrase is burned into your
memory forever; those three words change everything — how you view
your life to that point and beyond, how you interact with family and friends,
and perhaps your belief in a higher power,” said Glynn, adding that Leonard
has helped countess patients cope with a new level of vulnerability as they
try to navigate all parts of this this unwanted journey.
This is the part of her work that many not in this field have trouble
understanding, but for her, it’s a labor of love.
“Dr. Glynn and I talk about it all time ... we come to work every day, but
we don’t consider it work,” she said. “It’s like that old saying — find what
you love to do, call it work, and find a way to get paid for it. That’s how I
feel.”
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