Announcing the 2025 Infection Control Today Educator of the Year Award Winner: Patricia Montgomery, MPH, RN, CIC, FAPIC

Infection Control Today^® (ICT^®) is proud to announce Patricia “Patty” Montgomery, MPH, RN, CIC, FAPIC, as the recipient of the 2025 Educator of the Year Award. A nurse, infection preventionist, public health leader, and tireless mentor, Montgomery has spent more than a decade strengthening the infection prevention workforce through education, connection, and confidence building.

“It’s really quite an honor and a huge surprise to be acknowledged in this way,” Montgomery said. “Thank you very much.”

Montgomery’s career in infection prevention has been shaped by lived experience across decades of infectious disease response. She began her nursing career in the 1980s, long before universal precautions were standard practice.

“In nursing school, we didn’t use gloves,” she recalled. “The only gloves we had were sterile gloves. We would be insulting patients if we put a glove on before we touched them.”

That early exposure to evolving infection risks, including the emergence of HIV and later tuberculosis, sparked a lasting interest in how infections spread and how health care workers can protect themselves and their patients. After relocating from Boston to Washington State, Montgomery worked in intensive care units and surgical services, where she became deeply involved in implementing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) screening and isolation requirements following Washington’s 2009 MRSA law.

Her formal entry into infection prevention came in 2010, when she was asked to serve as the infection preventionist (IP) for a group of outpatient clinics. “I had no idea what I was doing,” she said. “I realized, holy crap, I don’t know anything about infection prevention. This is a whole new thing.”

Rather than turning away, Montgomery leaned in. She sought out mentors, joined the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiologists (APIC), and found a professional home among [IPs] who, she said, “were so welcoming and so helpful, and they really showed me how to be an IP.”

That spirit of shared learning became a defining theme of her career. After earning a master of public health degree, Montgomery joined the Washington State Department of Health, where she helped build the Infection Control Assessment and Response program under the CDC Ebola grant. From 2015 onward, she traveled across the state assessing facilities, training IPs, and ensuring they were included in outbreak investigations and decision-making.

“I realized that [IPs] were often not at the table,” Montgomery said. “They were doing the surveillance, they knew what was happening, and yet they weren’t always included in the decisions. I wanted to change that.”

One of Montgomery’s most enduring contributions began with her own professional insecurity. Recognizing that certification was essential to her credibility, she created a CIC study group with 2 colleagues. What started as a small webinar quickly grew into a nationally recognized peer learning model.

“Within 2 years, all the first 11 people were certified,” she said. “The last person was from long-term care, and she was the first long-term care IP in the state to get certified.”

Word spread organically. Study groups were shared across APIC chapters and eventually across state lines. Since 2016, Montgomery’s study group has supported hundreds of IPs, many of whom have gone on to leadership roles in hospitals, public health, and long-term care.

At the heart of her teaching philosophy is respect for the realities of frontline care. “It’s not a gotcha moment,” she said of addressing missed hand hygiene. “It’s a quiet moment. You ask why, and you listen.”

She emphasized that shame has no place in infection prevention. “We don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of good,” Montgomery said. “We want to reduce bioburden and help people do the right thing as often as they can.”

That approach, she noted, builds trust. “People started calling me with questions they were afraid to ask,” she said. “Not because I knew everything, but because I would find the answer and get back to them.”

Montgomery’s leadership was tested during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she worked at the state and county levels during some of the earliest outbreaks in the US. The emotional toll was significant, particularly in long-term care settings. “We were building the plane while we were flying it,” she said. “We didn’t have [personal protective equipment]. It felt like being back in the 1980s again.”

After the pandemic, Montgomery transitioned to hospital-based infection prevention and continues to support health systems and mentor the next generation of IPs. She believes the future of the field depends on relationships, not just surveillance.

“The bread and butter of infection prevention is not the data,” she said. “It’s being out there, educating our frontline people, understanding why they do what they do, and helping them improve.”

As this year’s Infection Control Today Educator of the Year, Montgomery represents the very best of infection prevention: curiosity, humility, and an unwavering commitment to lifting others up. “If I could get certified,” she said with a laugh, “anybody can. You just need the right support and a place to land.”