Blessing Hospital celebrates its 150th anniversary during 2025. This is the first in a series of stories celebrating the anniversary and generations of care, compassion and community through the stories of family members who work for Blessing.
"Mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to be reckoned with."
That quote is from author Melia Keeton-Digby. She does not know Karla Paris and Cathleen Koch, but it sure sounds like she does.
“We went through this together,” Karla said.
Karla is Blessing Hospital’s associate chief nursing officer. Cathleen Koch is Karla’s mother and instructor in Blessing Hospital’s Certified Nursing
Assistant program.
What they went through together was earning their bachelor of science in nursing degrees, and making memories along the way.
“She (Cathleen) was a year ahead of me getting her associate degree and then we got our bachelor degrees together,” Karla recalled. “We could work together on things. We always had each other to go to. I don’t know that our family appreciated it, because that was all we talked about – nursing and school. It consumed our lives.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a nurse,” Cathleen said. “My mom was a CNA. So, right out of high school I went to LPN school. I worked as a CNA in long term care while going to school and then as an LPN in the same facility after I graduated.”
Just like mom, Karla completed a high school vocational technical school CNA program and worked in the Mt. Sterling, Illinois, nursing home – just like mom did in high school as a CNA.
While Cathleen never directly encouraged Karla to go into nursing, she led by example.
“Nursing is all I ever knew,” Karla said.
In-between raising four children, Cathleen has worked in healthcare for more than 40 years, including 14 years as the administrator at the nursing home in Mt. Sterling where she and Karla had worked as CNAs.
When Karla chose Blessing-Rieman College of Nursing to earn her BSN degree – Cathleen joined her. During school they worked side-by-side at Blessing Hospital gaining their clinical experience.
“Every so often she would call me Mom while we were working,” Cathleen said. “Heads would turn. Our coworkers were like, ‘What?’ I’d say, ‘Yes, I am her mom.’ So, Karla started calling me Cathleen.”
And while Karla now “outranks” her mom at Blessing, Cathleen says, “This is the only time she gets to be the boss.”
Upon earning her nursing degree, Karla joined the Blessing Emergency Department, then left to do travel nursing for a year, came back to Blessing and served as house supervisor and as inpatient manager, left to be an Air Evac flight nurse for a couple of years, and returned to Blessing as Director of ER and Critical Care, which led to her current position of ACNO. Karla has 25 years at Blessing altogether.
She also holds a Master of Science in Nursing degree from Blessing-Rieman College and a Master of Business Administration degree from Culver Stockton College.
“We are very blessed to have the resources Blessing Health System provides our community,” Karla said. “I have been given many career opportunities the past 25 years. My determination is to make healthcare better, helping prepare clinicians to care for my family.”
Karla is also responsible for encouraging her mom to join the Blessing team when the CNA education program was looking for instructors.
“It’s a very friendly, patient-centered atmosphere,” Cathleen said of Blessing.
One more “inside story” about these two women. As ACNO, Karla speaks at CNA graduation ceremonies. Cathleen attends as a CNA instructor. When Karla is introduced at each graduation, it is mentioned that she is Cathleen’s daughter,
“It always brings tears to my eyes because I am so very proud of her,” mom said.
Cathleen has another reason to be proud as her daughter-in-law is Dawn Koch, a Blessing nurse practitioner. Guess where? In Mt. Sterling at the Blessing Health clinic, keeping the Koch family tradition of care strong in Brown County.
Celebrating generations of care, compassion and community at Blessing with the Koch family.