Aurora Cutright, right, gives Monopoly money to employees at the birthday party for WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital on Monday. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse)

MORGANTOWN — Sara Myers just finished lunch and was getting ready to eat again, but don’t judge her.

“All these food trucks,” said Myers, who is a technician in the cardiac catheterization lab at WVU Medicine Children’s. “I kind of have to.”

That’s because there was a party going on, as the old song says – and it was all for Myers and her colleagues who tend to young patients from across the Mountain State and surrounding areas.

Monday was the third anniversary of the hospital which officially began seeing patients on Sept. 29, 2022, and the place celebrated by filling a section of the parking lot with those food trucks that tempted Myers.

A stream of staff found their way out for the proceedings.

Aurora Cutright wears a birthday crown and earrings at the third birthday party for WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital on Monday. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse)

“We’re celebrating our entire team,” said Amy Bush, the hospital’s chief administrative officer. “It’s about our medical staff and our caregivers and the patients and their families who entrust us.”

A photo booth and a WVU Medicine Children’s version of the Monopoly board game went along with the festivities.

“In some ways it feels like it’s been a long time ago,” Bush said of the facility that grew from the sixth floor of J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital to its own 10-story tower next door.

In most ways, “It just feels like yesterday,” she said.

Owe that to the urgency of the place, said Bush, a nurse. She knew as a little girl she was going to enter that profession.

Amy Bush, Chief Administrative Officer at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital, talks about the hospital’s third birthday party for the employees Monday. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse)

She went from the triage station into management.

Time flies when doing good, meaningful work, she said.

WVU Medicine Children’s offers a full range of treatment, such as cardiac care, cancer treatment, dentistry and orthopedic services.

Sudden illnesses. Broken bones. Long-haul treatment to ensure a kid gets to go home.

Bush said she sees the scope of that mission every morning by gazing up at the building as she rolls into the parking lot for work.

“We take care of kids and families during their most vulnerable times,” Bush said. “It’s a privilege and it’s an honor.”

And the next few months will be even busier, she said. Plans are underway to expand the hospital’s clinical space, meaning enhanced facilities for neurology out-patient services, a sleep lab and a plastic surgery clinic, among others.

“We’re going for that one-stop shop,” she said.

Myers had just turned 30 when she decided for a new start. That was six years ago, when she went back to school and entered the medical profession.

“This is a special place to work,” she said.