April 2015
Allison
Braicks
,
RN
Medical-Surgical
University of Washington Medical Center
Seattle
,
WA
United States

 

 

 

Allison is an outstanding nurse. She is compassionate and caring with her patients. She is consistently given very challenging patients because of her skills, knowledge and expertise. Patients and families are always raving about her kindness and compassion for their loved ones. Allison is firm with her patients when they need it, pushing them to go the distance and believe in themselves in order to continue with their recovery.

Allison had a patient who was getting progressively worse throughout the day, his respiratory status declining. The provider was notified, but the patient's health had not improved despite multiple interventions. Allison advocated heavily for the patient to be transferred to the ICU. She was able to accurately describe the patient's status and timeline of changes to the primary team, highlighting the interventions and lack of progress. Her clinical expertise and knowledge of the patient and the situation led to an accurate assessment of the problem and the decision to transfer him to the ICU.

Allison stayed with the patient the whole time until he could be transferred, explaining what was going on to the patient and family. It was through her perseverance, good judgment, and strong clinical skills that the patient survived, and walked out of the hospital 4 weeks later.