June 2011
Barbara
West
,
RN
Med/Surg
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
San Jose
,
CA
United States

 

 

 

Barbara West is someone I’d like to emulate in the nursing world. Some see the nursing profession as just another job to pay the bills, but Barbara shoulders it as a humble calling. What makes Barbara’s style unique is that she exudes compassions from within when she’s addressing patient care. I remember this female patient marveling on about what an awesome nurse Barbara was, that she felt so fortunate to have Barbara take care of her these past days, and how Barbara reminded her of her deceased mother in the way she cared for her. Her eyes smiling as she conveyed her appreciation.

She is quite astute when assessing a patient’s condition and acts swiftly in emergent situations to benefit the patients. I witnessed this first hand when she was my reliever. She noticed my patient was weak, his color was pale, and after checking his vitals noticed his oxygen saturation was below normal. She immediately instigated the Rapid Response Team (RRT). After the RRT’s arrival, it was determined that the patient needed to be transferred to TCNU for a higher level of care. Barbara likes to see things through to its end, thus she stayed in the room until the patient was off of our unit.

I have seen how well Barbara collaborates with other disciplines to meet the demands of the patients and their families, at times painstaking the extra mile to accomplish her mission. I can attest that as her co-worker, she is admired and respected. Her cheerful solidarity at the nursing mightily reflects a consummate master at her craft, fluidly engaging superiority in her profession.

Finally, she’s a stellar nurse who has a ton of love and passion for the work that she does and always made quality patient care a priority. For these reasons I feel it befitting to nominate Barbara for the Daisy Award. On behalf of all of the patients she has cared for, I want to extend a great big Thank You to Barbara for her hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. Unassailably, the nursing world needs people like Barbara and with all due respect, our patients deserve to be cared for by people like Barbara.