Tara Morrissey

Tara is a team player but able to take charge and lead the team.  She is very supportive of her peers. She has shown consistent compassion for her geriatric patients and their families.  She is frequently mentioned as providing exceptional care on discharge phone calls. She also receives numerous Shinning Star Awards each month, a testament to her consistency.

She is an exceptional nurse who consistently goes above and beyond in caring for her patients as evidenced by the following situation.

It was change of shift and the nurses were in the report room. The clerk over head paged that emergent care was needed in one of the rooms. A daughter was feeding her father a large piece of protein bar. The patient was very sick with multiple systems in failure. The patient was on dialysis, had a colostomy and multiple drains in his abdomen. The patient was bed bound with a large sacral pressure ulcer and required a Clinitron bed. When the nurses all ran into the room they found the patient in supine position, his color was ashen and his eyes were rolled to the back of his head. He was visibly choking and struggling for air. Without hesitation, Tara immediately jumped on to the Clinitron bed, raised the patient to a sitting position and reached around him and performed the Heimlich maneuver until his airway was cleared. After the patient was stabilized, no words could describe how the patient’s daughter felt. The daughter was so thankful Tara was there. The daughter felt guilty that she fed him the protein bar.  At that point the daughter said if it wasn’t for Tara, her father would have died. The next day all that the daughter could talk about was how Tara saved her dad’s life. The staff unanimously felt that she should be recognized for her quick thinking and actions. If she did not act quickly the patient would have lost his airway.

This is just one of many examples where Tara used her critical thinking skills and was quick to respond in an emergency.  She is a great role model and exceptional nurse who is always putting her patients first.