Caryn is a wonderful nurse manager and leader. She has worked her way up the ladder on T4A, beginning as a staff RN, acting as unit ANM for many years and eventually becoming the current nurse manager. In her new role as nurse manager Caryn leads the team to strive for clinical excellence. She provides the most accurate and up-to-date evidence-based practice standards aligning with Baptist Health policies and procedures. She provides ample feedback to team members on surveys, research, and any policy changes and encourages our team to lead the way in clinical excellence. As nurse manager, Caryn is hands-on on the unit helping to clarify orders and consult with team members and physicians when needed to ensure best patient care. With years of clinical experience, she is a valuable resource and extremely knowledgeable in critical care. There have been occasions that Caryn has come to work in the middle of the night to help with patients and lead the team. Caryn also shines as a nurse leader by promoting an enjoyable workplace. Caryn is a caring and compassionate person, always upbeat with a positive attitude. She has an open-door policy to all team members and encourages staff to reach out to her if needed anytime day or night. She provides honest performance feedback while also encouraging and praising staff in the things that we are doing right. Our unit as a whole is hard working and a true team that helps everyone out and works together because of the example set for us by Caryn as our nurse manager. I have never felt as supported and encouraged as I do working with Caryn Parkhurst, and because of these reasons, I feel she greatly deserves to be recognized as an outstanding leader of our team.
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Caryn has worked hard to educate staff on quality measures and proper procedures. She goes to great lengths to educate on the rationale for what we are doing. She gives positive and constructive feedback. She lets us know when we are doing well. She has campaigned for our unit and has played a role in our unit re-do and obtaining items for our nurses and patients to help in their care. All of these items are highlighted for me when I float to other units and I see behavior that does not reflect an understanding of quality measures and procedures.
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Caryn has been our manager for a few years now, she manages approximately 70 team members, and she has led us to achieve high compliance with our quality measures, improving our outcomes as well as leading us in opportunities for improvement. Her dedication to our patients, families, and staff is apparent every day and we are proud to have her as our manager and would like her to be recognized and celebrated for all she does every day.
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Caryn is a compassionate and empathetic manager who not only goes beyond for her staff but also the patients on her unit. I am fortunate to be a part of her team and to have begun my nursing career on T4A. Whenever I expressed concerns, she addressed each situation empathetically and offered successful advice. She keeps the unit steady and deserves extensive recognition.
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In her role as Nurse Manager, Caryn has been able to foster an environment that is caring and nurturing by shifting her hours so that she is available to both shifts. She is very aware of the needs of her nightshift team and ensures that she works with them regularly. She promotes professional development by encouraging her team to go back to school as well as getting their CCRN and leads the way by going back going back to school for her MSN. She has purchased tools to assist her team in preparing for the CCRN and has several team members achieve success by becoming certified and also enrolled in different MSN programs. Sepsis is our patient population is common and with Caryn's assistance, we, as an organization have implemented the utilization of the EV1000 in our sepsis protocol which has been utilized on her unit for some time to help in the management of this patient population with great success. Caryn is recognized by her team as a great leader as evidenced by her engagement scores, quality indicators as well as her patient satisfaction scores.
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In the short three years since I have become a nurse, I haven't come across or heard of another nurse manager who measures up my experience with Caryn. When I started on T4A, Caryn was my ANM on night shift. She was one of the best resources I have ever had. Caryn's dedication to quality, evidence-based care is second to none. She was always there ready to teach me about anything I had questions about, and was the only person I found to always have the answer. She was always there with knowledge of policy, and patient care to help and nothing has changed since she took up the role of nurse manager. She explains each of her decisions, wanting to make sure the unit she has worked on for years and the people she has worked with for years are being cared for and supported. She does her best to make sure they are empowered to provide the best care possible for critically ill patients. I cannot explain how amazing it is to have a manager who not only is able to support me in my job but is capable of actually doing my job better than I am. She truly cares for and has respect for all of the nurses she manages and shows this by doing her best to make sure all the administrative parts of the organization are handled well, and she does it in a way that allows nurses to do their job with as little interruption and difficulty as possible, and to the best of their ability.
Thank you, Caryn, for all you do, you are an inspiration to your team and all of us at Baptist Health!