Former nurse ‘optimistic’ about meeting challenges as CEO of Limerick Hospital

As chief executive of the Limerick University Hospital group, Prof Colette Cowan has found herself in one of the most publicly scrutinised posts in the HSE system.

Having started out as a trained A&E nurse, she now heads the biggest employer organisation in the Mid-West with 3,500 personnel engaged across six hospitals.

A divorced mother of two daughters, one a student nurse and the other in secondary school, Prof Cowan trained at St Vincent’s in Dublin and, after working as an emergency department nurse, set about a career in management.