Shirley Burk-Bott

Heroines are larger than life. They create. They inspire. They motivate. They have strong characters and demonstrate great concern for others. Basically, heroines are often ordinary people, and may do ordinary jobs, but in an extraordinary way. They are the people who make organizations. They are the people we work with and look up to. All this applied to Shirley.

Shirley Burk-Bott died September 13, 1983 at the age of forty-nine. Shirley came to Kaiser Permanente in 1955 directly from the University of North Dakota, where she graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Medical Technology. She grew with the challenges at Kaiser and ended as manager of all the laboratories for Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Southwest Washington till her death. With the possible exception of one other person Shirley probably designed (and redesigned as the region expanded) more medical non-commercial laboratories than anyone else in the country. She had eighty-eight full time employees. The association has benefited from Shirley’s special abilities for planning, organizing people, and producing outstanding results.

In spite of her battle with cancer, she would put her own needs aside and tend to the problems that needed to be addressed. Shirley was a patient of the Kaiser Permanente Cancer Counseling Center weekly program. She thought it was an opportunity to live and grow in a positive way with this life-threatening disease. She said the whole person is important, giving credit to the center that contributed to her health and the growth of her mental and emotional self. 

Shirley left her mark in her professional organization, the Association for Oregon Medical Technology. In 1975, she was recognized as Oregon’s Medical Technologist of the Year. Throughout her inspiring career she wrote and had published a variety of articles, always sharing her expertise. She authored a handbook for the Oregon Society that sets guidelines for setting up conventions, that is still in use today. She held many offices in both the Oregon and Portland Society of Medical Technology. Through the years she attended many national and state conventions, conferences, workshops, and seminars throughout the country.

Some of her awards were: National Certification for Competence as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, 1982; completed a Laboratory Safety Management Training Course conducted by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, 1978; Award for Outstanding Service to the Profession of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, 1983; the Association of Oregon Medical Technology has established a fund in her name, known as the Shirley Burk-Bott Emma Cole Scholarship Fund that has continued for twenty-five years.

Written by Vera Burk, her sister