Hospice Nurse Recognized With 2025 Excellence in Nursing Award
Granite VNA hospice nurse Ellie Atherton, RN, has been honored with New Hampshire Magazine’s and New Hampshire Nurses Association’s annual Excellence in Nursing award in the hospice and palliative care category. Established in 2017, the Excellence in Nursing awards honor the unsung heroes of New Hampshire’s healthcare community who go above and beyond to comfort, heal and educate.
With more than 20 years in nursing, Atherton is known as a compassionate and dedicated nurse who has dedicated much of her career to caring for people who are nearing the end of their lives. Atherton’s nominators noted her positive attitude and her dedication to supporting and encouraging her colleagues as they provide skilled and compassionate care to patients and their families. They said her professionalism and gentle approach give patients and their loved ones confidence in her and the Granite VNA hospice team from the time they are admitted for care
“Receiving this recognition is truly an honor, especially as I near the end of my hospice nursing career,” said Atherton. “It’s a privilege to be allowed into such private times in the lives of our hospice patients and their loved ones. I always hope to help them find meaningful end-of-life experiences and physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort to support a peaceful passing. I am grateful to be part of a team that shares in this commitment.”
In addition to her work as a hospice nurse, Atherton has authored four books on end-of life, including, “Stepping Stones – Following a Pathway to the End of Life.” She is an educator and sought-after speaker on the topic of caring for those who are dying; her 2023 TEDx talk, “Lessons from the Dying,” has more than 10,000 views on YouTube.
Atherton holds an Associate Degree in Nursing from Manchester Community College, and is a Provider Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) trainer. Her past credentials include Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN), Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse Educator (CHPNE) and Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) certified hospice consultant.
About the author
Ellie has a long history of caring for people who are nearing the end of their lives. In the 1990s, she worked with many as an herbalist, helping them to discover ways to find comfort. Though she could not offer cures for their life-threatening diseases, she was able to help them elongate their lives with a focus on enjoying what time they had left. They shared deep and profound conversations with her, and Ellie found she was comfortable in these discussions.
In 2000, she embarked on a nursing career and in 2003 chose end-of-life care as her medical focus. The dying patients often shared their thoughts, fears, and visions around death with Ellie, and she was inspired to learn from them. She carried journals in her car to record the details of the profound conversations she and her patients were having. This was when the seeds of her book were planted. She wrote at length about the incredible unexplained events she was witnessing and the important lessons she was learning from these experts on death— the dying patients.
In 2017, after many attempts to write the book, Stepping-Stonesfinally began to flow freely onto the pages for her. The process was cathartic, invigorating, and necessary. Ellie spent two years writing more than forty stories and has included ten of them in her first book Stepping-Stones ~Following a Pathway to the End of Life.
Her second book, More Stepping-Stones~Unique Experiences and Vital Lessons Along Life’s Pathway, was released in early August of 2021 and her third book, The End-of-Life Pocket Guide, was released in December of 2021.
Ellie’s Bio click here
Ellie is an herbalist of over 40 years, who started making plant medicines as a teenager in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, she planted her first herb garden, which grew into a teaching garden for her students—offering medicinal plant identification of over 200 species. She offered clients natural approaches to healing through health consultations and made them plant medicines tailored to their specific needs. She advocated for and spoke on the safe use of herbal medicines throughout New England. Ellie’s presentations were well received by the medical community, the general public, at the Annual Women’s Herbal Conference, as well as many college and university programs. For many years she offered a course that she designed, called Herbalism and Natural Healing, to hundreds of participants.
Ellie served as adjunct faculty at Manchester Community College, where she offered a course in herbal studies. Many of her students went on to pursue more in-depth training, while others opened product line businesses using the knowledge and hands-on teaching she had shared. In the mid-1990s, Ellie was a writer for the Manchester Union Leader – Little Newspapers division, offering a column called, Herb of the Week. The column introduced readers to the growth, cultivation, culinary, and safe medicinal use of plants.
In 2000, Ellie embarked on a nursing career, and after graduating in 2003 decided the field of medicine she felt most connected to was hospice. She became certified as a Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse (CHPN) and later advanced her certification to become a Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse Educator (CHPNE). This enabled her to offer teaching on palliative care and pain management to physicians and nurses. She was one of the first Providers Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) educators trained in the state of New Hampshire. This was an effort to get patients’ healthcare wishes recognized and entered into their medical records. Ellie became a Certified Hospice Consultant through the Accreditation Commission for Health Care(ACHC).
In 2010 Ellie was given the opportunity to open a hospice program for a large Visiting Nurse Association. The role was both challenging and rewarding as it quickly grew into a successful program. The healthcare providers she helped to assemble remain among the most exceptional hospice teams she has ever worked alongside. After leaving the hospice director role, she opened a holistic health care center that encompassed her knowledge as a nurse and herbalist, allowing her to offer holistic health consultations—bringing her back to her roots.
Ellie began offering private nurse advocacy services to assist patients through the challenges of a complicated medical system in 2016. She worked with patients who were still undergoing treatments in the last year of life and assisted them and their families through the last days and hours of the dying process, in the comfort of their private home settings. She facilitated meetings on patients behalf in nursing and assisted living facilities, private homes, and hospitals. When patients requested more clarity regarding their options, meetings with their caregivers, and healthcare team, especially their physicians and surgeons, facilitated by a private nurse advocate, was powerfully effective. She aptly named the service Healthcare Guide. Ellie is best known for her thorough, compassionate care and for untiring advocacy for her patients, colleagues, and staff. Due to the arrival of COVID-19, she had to close the business. Currently working as a hospice nurse, she continues to care for dying patients and support their families in their home setting. Ellie says this is a role she feels called to, which offers her the never-ending privilege of being a loving presence at the end of a human life.
