Cendra Oldaker

Cendra is the nurse in ICU that those are drawn to.  Her passion for nursing, patients, families and coworkers is evident every day she works.  There are so many examples I can give regarding her calmness and compassion in a crisis.

The one story that touched me the most was when an OB critical care patient was hemorrhaging and we could not stop the bleeding.  The patient was awake the entire time.  The patients husband was out of the country in the military so Cendra stayed by her side; calm, cool and compassionate.  She let the patient know she was not alone.  Cendra stayed after her normal work hours to be with this patient for personal support and reassurance.  Ultimately the bleeding was stopped and the patient did survive but it was very doubtful at the time.

Cendra represents “that nurse” that many aspire to be.  I cannot think of a nurse that represents the profession of nursing any better than Cendra.

Second nomination received on Cendra:

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Cendra through stressful situations.  In particular today, during a very stressful code, she was very calm and polite throughout.  Codes are a very stressful time and to know that the person running the code acted in a very nice, caring, compassionate manner made the stressful time for our staff more calming.  After the code was complete and all was said and done, Cendra cared enough to come back over to our unit to check on the nurses.