She's a true hero to transplant patients

By Wendy Soderburg

She may not have won the top "Hospital Hero" award, but Lea Ann Cook, a registered nurse for 28 years, is still a larger-than-life hero in the eyes of the organ transplant community.

Cook was nominated to represent UCLA at the National Health Foundation's inaugural Hospital Hero Awards last November at the Los Angeles Westin Bonaventure Hotel.

"It wasn't about winning. It's kind of like what they say about the Oscars — it's wonderful just to be nominated!" Cook said with a laugh. "But I was very honored."

The Hospital Hero Awards are designed to recognize outstanding achievements that occur within hospitals every day. Cook, in her position as nursing director for UCLA Medical Center's transplant and surgical specialties intensive-care units and Critical Care Transport Team, is constantly striving to alleviate the devastating impact of the nation's organ shortage on those who are awaiting a new heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, or other organ or tissue.

Since 2004, Cook has led UCLA's participation in the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initiative to increase organ donation rates to 75% or higher throughout the country. She helped create the hardworking "Bruins for Life" team of hospital staff that increased UCLA's organ donation rate from 46% (pre-collaboration) to 77% in April 2006. That meant an additional 45 people benefited from life-saving transplants at UCLA Medical Center and elsewhere.

"The awards ceremony was fabulous, but my face represents the work of many, many people on the Bruins for Life team," said Cook. "The work we've done has involved bedside nurses, managers, educators, social workers, physicians, organ transplant coordinators … it really is a multidisciplinary group that has worked hard to improve processes and adopt best practices to make things better."

A native of tiny Franklin, Ky., Cook received a bachelor's degree in nursing from Western Kentucky University and an M.S.N. from Vanderbilt University. After working for several years as the manager of an intensive-care unit at Bowling Green Medical Center, Cook sought warmer climes and took a position as clinical specialist for the critical-care unit at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, Calif. She came to UCLA in 1993.

Cook is the oldest of five girls; all but one went into the health-care field. "We are very, very close. We call ourselves 'The Sisters,' " Cook said. "I've often said that I would write a book about us, because it would be a pretty amazing story. And funny — my God, we laugh!"

When it comes to her work in organ donation, however, Cook is pensive.

"When you think about what these donor families are going through … it's one of the most challenging and difficult times," she said. "And for them to have the presence of mind to hear and to understand and to do what they think is right — it's incredible."