Candice Simon Lesure, RN

Candice’s depth of knowledge and experience were evident from the moment she walked into the room and introduced herself. I had already been in the hospital for 6 days and was facing challenges with unexpected postpartum complications. I had a lot of questions about my condition and was really frustrated, on top of getting very little sleep and being constantly interrupted between my own checks and checks for my newborn all day and night. Candice took a different approach. First, she entered the room quietly, unlike a lot of other providers who would enter noisily and at all hours of the day and night during a critical period for me where I needed deep restorative rest. On multiple occasions, I had dozed off after nearly sleepless nights with my newborn and thought I heard the door open but was never disturbed. After I specifically asked her about it, she said that she always checks and that if I was asleep and it wasn’t critical, she would come back because I needed rest. This built a foundation of trust for me, and I opened up to Candice about my frustrations and questions.
Candice, in addition to her obvious skill, was gentle, calm and instilled confidence in me to empower myself and continue asking questions that she could not answer to my medical team when appropriate and when she was unable to answer my questions that pertained to her level of care or she didn’t know who exactly to contact, she diligently let me know that she would find out and send them my way. She did this for me on multiple occasions and helped me advocate for myself to improve my care and health outcomes when I requested additional consultations from two other providers and to speak with various hospital administrators. Candice’s advocacy and ability to calmly encourage and empower me through one of the most difficult times of my life made a huge difference to me and allowed me to receive top care in addition to gaining a better understanding of the complications I was dealing with. She held my hand and told me I would get through this and she would do everything she could to help me, and she did. I am grateful to have had Candice as part of my care team, and every patient should be so lucky to have her!