I had hip replacement surgery recently. Betsy was my nurse that night. First of all, I'd brought allergy meds from home to take at night. I reeeeallly didn't want to deal with middle of the night sneezing fits. These meds were not from the hospital; they needed to go down to the hospital pharmacy, get scanned in, labeled and checked against the other drugs that I'd been dispensed. I felt really bad for her---this would take some doing in the middle of the night! She was cheerful, reassuring and professional, kept me posted, and when the meds came back with the "all clear" she brought them to me to take. So whatever else was going on that night, allergies wouldn't be part of it! 

She also took the time to have a much more thorough conversation with me about pain than I had had before. I'd grown so accustomed to the chronic hip pain pre-surgery that level 4 or 5 pain seemed like a good target. She suggested I read the chart that explains (in words, not just the face) what each pain level entails. I revised my target to 2-3, deciding that I did not want pain to be a factor in the activities I needed to engage in, to heal. It completely changed my thinking about pain in recovery and even now as I do my home PT and practice walking. It made an incredible difference in my comfort level in the hospital and in my home recovery. 

I don't know whether it was intuition, skill or experience, but she realized that I may be unnecessarily limited by pain. Instead of telling me that, she patiently gave me information, options and support, and let me make my own (better) decision. I really appreciate the extra time she took, and never made me feel like she needed to rush off to help another patient.