Ashleigh Harlow
February 2015
Ashleigh
Harlow
Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU)
Children's National Medical Center
Washington
,
DC
United States
Our son spent his first 47 days in the CICU undergoing surgery and treatment for HLHS. Although we were extremely impressed with all of his nursing care, there was a small group of nurses that really stood out on an exceptional level. Of this core group, the one who went above and beyond more than anybody was Ashleigh Harlow.
It is very difficult to try to condense all of her extraordinary care into "one situation", but for the sake of this nomination, I will try. Once my son had been in the CICU for 30 days, our social worker instructed us that we could have a "continuity of care team". She asked for our top several nursing choices so that she could email them to see if they would be interested in helping manage my son's care from a nursing perspective. Ashleigh was the first to immediately say "yes", even though it would require quite a bit of time and work.
After accepting this responsibility, she created an amazing notebook for my son (on her weekend off). She brought it in for us to see and we were truly blown away with it. We couldn't believe she would use her time off to create such a beautiful book. (It has some amazing artwork that she designed.) The same day that she gave us the notebook, she also went through every day that my son had been in the hospital and documented each event so that we could take part in the "beads of courage" program. She helped us string together the more that 270 beads (at the time) symbolizing every medical event in my son's journey.
That same day we received some news from the neurologist that my son's head ultrasound has some issues. Ashleigh was there to help explain what exactly the findings were in ways that I could understand. This was just one day and we had many like this with Ashleigh. She is also one of the most intelligent nurses that we met in our journey.
Ashleigh trains other nurses constantly and still manages to provide the best nursing care possible. Lastly, I have see her in the hospital on her off days multiple times because she is always looking to improve herself and the hospital itself.
It is very difficult to try to condense all of her extraordinary care into "one situation", but for the sake of this nomination, I will try. Once my son had been in the CICU for 30 days, our social worker instructed us that we could have a "continuity of care team". She asked for our top several nursing choices so that she could email them to see if they would be interested in helping manage my son's care from a nursing perspective. Ashleigh was the first to immediately say "yes", even though it would require quite a bit of time and work.
After accepting this responsibility, she created an amazing notebook for my son (on her weekend off). She brought it in for us to see and we were truly blown away with it. We couldn't believe she would use her time off to create such a beautiful book. (It has some amazing artwork that she designed.) The same day that she gave us the notebook, she also went through every day that my son had been in the hospital and documented each event so that we could take part in the "beads of courage" program. She helped us string together the more that 270 beads (at the time) symbolizing every medical event in my son's journey.
That same day we received some news from the neurologist that my son's head ultrasound has some issues. Ashleigh was there to help explain what exactly the findings were in ways that I could understand. This was just one day and we had many like this with Ashleigh. She is also one of the most intelligent nurses that we met in our journey.
Ashleigh trains other nurses constantly and still manages to provide the best nursing care possible. Lastly, I have see her in the hospital on her off days multiple times because she is always looking to improve herself and the hospital itself.