From the day I started at Ranken as a new grad, I remember feeling inspired by Alyssa’s kind, thoughtful nature and the professional competence she displayed while caring for her patients. Alyssa has routinely shown immense compassion for every kid she's encountered at Ranken. She is soft at heart yet firm when she needs to be, never backing down from educating patients or staff. Above all else, she remains calm and collected in even the most challenging situations. No instance better summarizes her qualities than the high-quality care she provided for a passing child and their family. Alyssa answered the families' questions, assisted in fulfilling their wishes (such as collecting keepsakes), placed the patient in a specific outfit, and spent many hours with the patient and family even after they had passed away. She did all of this while also caring for other patients and maintaining a calm, effective demeanor. We are extremely lucky to have Alyssa as part of our team.

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I always know when I have a shift with Alyssa it is going to go smoothly. She is not only always on the ball with getting her work down and helping others but she always makes time to make the patients smile, even working the night shift. She makes family members feel at ease and has gotten many compliments on how well she explains what is going on. She is an extraordinary nurse.

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Alyssa was my preceptor when I started at RJ and was so welcoming from the start. She went above and beyond to make sure I felt comfortable with everything before I was off orientation. She was always so excited to come to work and help me learn. I remember we had a very difficult young patient on their 1st night here and Alyssa did everything in her power to make them feel comfortable when they were incredibly anxious. This patient had a long stay ahead of them and every time they saw Alyssa they were so excited. I think this was because of the impact she had on the first night. She didn’t just go above and beyond for me and this patient, she is always so good at reaching out to everyone to make sure their transition to RJ is smooth. Several new gads were uncomfortable with the crash cart and ERTs and Alyssa took the time to go over the crash cart and advocated for further education during NEO + beyond.

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Alyssa always embodies the RJ values and principles while providing care to her patients. She is a role model whom many of her coworkers look to for guidance. Alyssa came into a shift without knowing that she would be tasked with providing postmortem care to one of her patients who had passed shortly before shift change. She accepted her responsibility without complaint and provided care to this patient and her family with compassion and grace. She accommodated many different challenging and changing requests from this patient's family, helping to ease their grieving process. As a result of her compassionate care, this patient's parents were able to find closure in their final moments with their daughter.