I nominate Carrie Moelber for the DAISY Award for the extraordinary work that she does every day. Not only is she an extremely skilled RN, but it is her kindness, caring, compassion, and her desire to go above and beyond for the patients and families she cares for that make her an outstanding nurse and role model. She demonstrates commitment to our values everyday with every patient.
This is just one example of Carrie's commitment and the "super-human work" that she does every day on SDS: One of the surgeons decided to send a child home after surgery instead of keeping the child overnight as originally planned. Carrie noted that the child had pain medication and antibiotics ordered for her overnight stay, but no prescriptions for home. The family was not English speaking and it was late in the evening. Realizing this would be a barrier for the family she started working on the home prescriptions right away. She asked another RN to call the pharmacy to ensure that they had the medications the patient needed while she called the MD to call the order in. Carrie realized she could not send this family alone to the pharmacy because of their language barrier and she secured the help of the housekeeper in Phase l PACU to translate for her due to time constraints as the pharmacy was closing. The housekeeper and Carrie accompanied the father out of the hospital to the pharmacy at 8pm to help him with the medications and translations. Upon their return from the pharmacy Carrie used the language line to review care, discharge instructions and medications at length until she was comfortable that they were able to care for their daughter at home.
The next day Carrie offered to do their follow up phone call, and again spoke with the family at length. She made sure that the patient was taking both her antibiotics and pain medication. The family voiced their concern to Carrie about her full liquid diet that she was to continue for 2 weeks. Carrie called the surgeon and was instructed that she could tell the family they could begin a soft diet. She called the family back to communicate the diet information, as this was a major concern for them.
As Carrie was telling me about her evening, I was not surprised by her actions or her kindness toward the family and her determination that this family would receive the best care from her, as this is something I witness from Carrie on a daily basis, and from all the staff on SDS. Every day as we walk through the units we see staff interacting with patients and families and doing everything they can to support them during this brief but extremely stressful time on SDS. The teamwork Carrie experienced from the staff is the teamwork they demonstrate every day, and the actions of Carrie on this evening are part of who she is, and we are lucky to have her as part of the SDS staff.