In the ICU we recently had a young 25 year old trauma patient that had lost both of her legs in a horrible accident. She lost so much blood and required multiple transfusions. Carol had her on a Saturday night. When she had returned for her four hour shift on Sunday, Carol had gone to the store and bought the patient a fan, shampoo and conditioner. She spent the four hours of her shift washing the blood out of her patient's hair. This story is a small example of Carol's dedication to patient care and her ability to go above and beyond to ensure the individual needs of her patients are met.

What is not in this story is the fact that Carol spent a significant amount of time reviewing each of the blood products transfused between the Emergency Department and Surgery. This patient was the recipient of our Massive Transfusion Protocol also known as the MTP. Her diligence and questioning attitude identified the difficulty in following the MTP orders. She recognized that in the confusion of this order set one of the required time sensitive medications was missed. This is a complex process for any nurse, the Blood Bank and Pharmacy. Her "Good Catch" resulted in a focused multidisciplinary team to review the order set and to improve the MTP process. Her questioning attitude resulted in an improved process to ensure ordering the MTP is easier and a revised flow sheet was developed to ensure tracking the labs, blood products, and required medications are tracked in real time. Additional resources will also be sent to the Emergency Department to support the ED nurse with this complex process. Her "Good Catch" resulted in better documentation of the MTP as the patient moves from the ED to the OR to the ICU as well as an improved process for the physicians and nurses. The end result will be better care for terribly ill and injured patients.

Carol Rickel is a nurse's nurse. She is dedicated to her patients and to excellence in all she does. She pays attention to details, asks the clarifying questions and is the wingman for all of her peers. The Behavior Based Expectations (BBEs) are not a new skill for Carol. They are in her very nature. As a wingman for her peers she is a constant mentor. She will spend the time to help, if she does not know something she will find the resources and seek the appropriate answers. If a job has to be done, she WILL get it done, no matter how tedious.

Carol has been at Advocate Condell Medical Center since June 8, 1981. She has seen much, taught much and learned much. Carol is one of the nurses we can always count on to ensure problems and solutions are identified and communicated in the ICU. Her openness in meetings leads to increased collaboration among everyone. She WILL ask the hard questions and expect answers that include the "why".

If Carol has the skill, time and ability she will be there for anyone. In my time here as a Nurse Manager, I have seen Carol even volunteer to float consistently to OB when they were short staffed and needed help. Most of us enter OB with much fear and trepidation. Not Carol. She is flexible, dedicated and will always share her knowledge. She is what a role model looks like and demonstrates this in each of her shifts.

Her attention to detail and her ability to see past a task to achieve a goal is why she is successful and deserves this recognition. Every patient is her priority. By the way, when she bought the fan for this patient she really bought two. She wanted to ensure there would be one for the next patient. She is not only in the moment when she cares for patients, she looks to the future and looks to see how it can be better. Carol Rickel is not only a DAISY Nurse, she represents what is wonderful in nursing.