Mary Ringstad's Irish Catholic background gave her strong foundations for a 25-year career at the Calvary Mater Newcastle.
She often dealt with death and dying and the intriguing experiences people have in life's end stages.
Ms Ringstad has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community through social welfare roles.
"The Catholic health care tradition has that deep sense of compassion for those who are most vulnerable," Ms Ringstad said.
"I loved the opportunity to engage with people who were unwell. It's a privileged position to be invited into their world."
She also loved being part of a team and collaborating with others.
"We had a lot of fun," she said.
"That's something people find ironic when you're talking about working with people who are unwell, particularly when I worked in palliative care.
"But it's a very rich place of human experience. Part of that is the silly and funny things that happen in life."
Her career was also helped by being familiar with death and dying since she was a child.
"In the family when people died, we were part of it. We went to funerals. We were never excluded," she said.
Her roles at the Calvary Mater included director of mission, pastoral care manager and chair of the palliative and end-of-life care committee.
Working with the dying was about "listening to their experience of living and trusting that their life has deep value, meaning and significance".
When talking to such people, she said "it is challenging and you have to be honest about your own life and the different struggles we all have".
"When you step into the world of these people and stand alongside them, you come to know your own vulnerability.
"And you see the courage, trust and generosity of spirit that people have."
She's proud of establishing the Closing the Gap Collaborative Committee and Multicultural Access Committee in her time at the Calvary Mater.
She was also co-president of the Hunter Branch of Spiritual Care Australia.
She said it was "extraordinary to work with people who are consciously dying".
"They know they are moving into that end stage of life. It's surprising how many people are alert right until the end stages - the last 72 hours or so.
"You get a sense that they start to move away."
She had experienced dying people "saying they're being visited" by loved ones who had died.
"Maybe there is a scientific explanation for that, as the brain starts to deteriorate.
"From my perspective, what's important is that they trust the experience and are comforted by it.
"The journey is the journey and it goes where it goes."
