Terri Murtland Obituary

Terri Murtland attended Farmington High School in Farmington, MI. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Terri Murtland.

Graduation Year	Class of 1971
Date of Passing	Aug 21, 2008
About	As a young nurse in an intensive care unit, Terri Murtland was touched by the sight of sick babies. She wanted to do something to help mothers have healthier pregnancies. She returned to school to become a midwife at a time when the profession wasn't always embraced by hospitals. The University of Michigan Hospital had created a Nurse Midwifery Service, and Murtland joined it in 1986 while it was still in its earliest stages. Share Along with getting the midwifery service off the ground, Murtland advised many of its nurses, spoke to U-M nursing students and high school students to inspire them to become midwives, and personally delivered more than 800 babies. This week, Murtland's colleagues are mourning her death on Sunday, at age 54, after a lengthy struggle with cancer. Terri Murtland Plans are already in place to dedicate U-M's Nurse Midwifery Service in Murtland's honor at a 25th anniversary celebration on Oct. 9. A scholarship and lectureship in her name are being established. "She was a mentor to many of us," said Joanne Bailey, director of the midwife service. Taking a more holistic approach to delivering babies than obstetricians, midwives were battling for greater acceptance in hospitals across the country when Murtland joined the profession, her colleagues say. They describe her work as a pioneering effort that helped them gain greater respect and expand their role. Though Murtland retired in 2006 to battle cancer, many midwives at the hospital - including Bailey - still regularly think of her for inspiration and guidance, asking themselves, "What would Terri do," when stuck dealing with a tricky situation.. Murtland was known for her practicality, but had a deep passion for her job, rising in the middle of the night to deliver a baby, sometimes staying at the hospital for 24 hours straight. Her kindness extended to making quilts for some of her patients. "She would go the extra amount of time and hours to make sure the patient always came first," said her husband Douglas Foster, emeritus professor in the U-M department of ecology and evolutionary biology and former director of the Reproductive Sciences Program. The couple recently sold their Dexter home after building a new house on the coast of British Columbia. Murtland earned a bachelor's degree from the U-M School of Nursing, and went to work at several hospitals, including U-M's. She went back to school, earning a master's from the Yale University School of Nurse Midwifery. In 1995, Murtland became ill with pancreatic cancer, took time off from work to fight the disease, and returned to work later that year. In 2006, the disease recurred. "She had just the right touch with patients and knew exactly what to say at the right moment," said Patricia Crane, a midwife who worked with Murtland at U-M for more than 19 years. Signaling how far midwives had come, Murtland and Crane developed an expanded role for midwives about eight years ago. When pregnant women come to the birthing center, a midwife now does the initial assessment.