Ana Martinez was my preceptor when I first started in ICN. I learned then, what a wonderful work ethic she has, and how she never fails to go above and beyond for our patients and their families.
The last three days she managed to amaze me even more and I feel so much gratitude to work with someone as wonderful as her. We have had the same patient who is getting ready for discharge. The situation is complicated psychosocially and medically. The baby is a twin who is 5 months now and has many chronic medical problems, going home with a G-tube, a pump, multiple medications, amongst many other things, requiring extensive teaching for a family that only speaks a dialect that only has an interpreter during the day. Ana organized the information from so many teams and made sure that the parents were able to comprehend what they were being taught. Another one of the barriers was the fact that only the mother is able to read and write a little, while the father can't. Ana came up with a great way to color code medications with syringes and made a chart that was very easy to follow. Every evening, when I came to get report, I could see more of her hard work and felt so much better about the ability of the parents to care for their fragile baby! She also nurtured the family to gain confidence in their ability to provide the care the baby needed. As I watched the parents, I could tell how Ana's hard work was paying off, as the parents relied on each other to troubleshoot any issues that came up. I know Ana gave her all to this family and she is inspiring as a nurse and colleague!