“Carolyn was caring for a woman who'd been admitted for pretty bad pneumonia. This patient had flown across the country to our town to visit her brand new grandbaby. The night she was admitted, she was sick but holding her own. The next day the patient got worse; her signs led us to investigate a possible pulmonary embolism.”

“Carolyn spent a 12 hour night shift watching her breathe, listening to her lungs, increasing her oxygen, calling doctors, drawing labs and calling her family to update them. Carolyn developed such an effective rapport with this patient that she felt comfortable voicing her fear about her illness and asking the difficult questions about her prognosis.”

“During this same shift, Carolyn was caring for four other patients on our telemetry unit, yet she made this new grandmother feel "like the only sick person here." Because of Carolyn's diligence, our critical care team was able to orchestrate a calm and organized transfer and moved the patient to ICU, where she got even more appropriate care for her worsening condition. As we were moving the patient out, she grabbed Carolyn's hand and asked her to come with us.”

“It's a little piece of nursing science to translate some observations and lab results into one's next intervention, but it's quite a feat in the art of nursing to clinically anticipate, while compassionately communicating. Carolyn is our colleague and our friend, and we know she's good. On this shift, she was true to her usual form: good to the patient, good for the patient and responsible for this patient's better experience and better outcome.”