Corrine Graham is the definition of a DAISY Nurse Leader. She has been the Nurse Manager for the Medical and Surgical ICUs for a little over a year, and during that year she has significantly improved not only my leadership skills but the leadership abilities of all our charge nurses and team members. She has helped bridge gaps between the units and brought us together as not just a team, but as one big family. Corrine has advocated for MICU and SICU so much so that staffing and team member morale have dramatically improved. Furthermore, she has provided the leadership needed to improve our critical care outcomes, making us some of the best units in BayCare.

Corrine always has a positive attitude and is always trying to see the positive sides of terrible situations. She is a team player, not just within her units, but within the entire hospital. She is consistently looking "at the bigger picture" and looking out for the "house" as a whole. Corrine projects this outlook on all of her team members and instills in us to always be looking out for more than just our direct team members.

Corrine takes a compassionate, hands-on approach with her team and the patients we are caring for. She can oftentimes be found in the unit assisting with patient care, communicating upcoming changes with her team, or just having one-on-one personal conversations with them. Corrine believes in work-life balance and will do everything in her power to maintain flexibility with work-life balance for her team members.

Corrine exemplifies what a DAISY Nurse Leader should be. She is the most genuine, transparent, compassionate, and caring leader that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. She is always encouraging her team to do better and to better themselves; an example of this is when she first came to MICU and SICU, we only had one certified nurse, now we have seven with several more scheduled to take the exam. She is a positive, enthusiastic, caring, compassionate, encouraging, and extraordinary leader, and we are very lucky to have her as our leader.

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Corrine became the Unit Manager of SICU and MICU in the late fall of 2018, and this was a tumultuous time for both critical care units. For the previous year, our units had been through many changes, and though necessary, they were still difficult. Because of these changes, there was great skepticism and mistrust. On day one, Corrine Graham set about to win over her new team by inspiring us to trust her.

One of the first tasks of a good leader is to inspire trust. A trusting relationship is crucial to effectively leading a team. To establish trust, leaders should be accessible, honest, confident, and respectful. Corrine rounded daily in both units, initially learning who we were, how we worked, and what our daily flow was. She took the time to meet with us in groups and individually, listening to our concerns. Corrine learned our workflow by listening to us and also walking the walk with us. She went down to the ER to help us pick up our patients, took patients to IR, took X-rays and CT scans, started IVs, and cleaned up patients. In other words, our team found her to be accessible, and she inspired us to trust her. Even when the answers to our questions and concerns weren't what we may have wanted to hear. Corrine is fully transparent, and you always understand the "why" when you speak with her.

Another important aspect of a DAISY Nurse Leader is the ability to communicate. Communication can often be easy when you are communicating pleasant topics. But Corrine excels in communicating, even when it is the most difficult of topics. One example is when she met with us for our yearly employee evaluation. Corrine began each evaluation by welcoming us into the room and pulling up a chair so that she sat side by side with each of us as she reviewed the peer evaluations and comments. Each comment was discussed, and those that contained constructive criticisms were presented as opportunities for us to grow into better nurses. This is truly what the evaluation process should be. It never felt punitive; rather, it felt as though it was an opportunity for real growth. Acknowledging our strengths and helping us to identify opportunities to improve and grow as nurses and employees. Another critical part of communication is being able to receive communication. Corrine came from a large med/surg unit and brought with her ideas for staffing, schedules, morning report, etc. When conversations were had discussing our processes as compared to her previous processes, Corrine listened to us and allowed us to choose what would work best for our team. Corrine's standard response has always been, "As long as patients are receiving safe, quality care, then we can be flexible." Again, we feel that she listened to us.

Lastly, what truly makes Corrine stand out as a DAISY Nurse Leader is her ability to unite our team. In a few weeks, SICU and MICU will be opening our new unit. We will transition from two units with 12 beds each to one unit with 36 beds. For the past year, Corrine has anticipated that move and has worked diligently to bring us together. She has demonstrated time and again that it is "our" unit, not MICU or SICU. Corrine doesn't just talk about ways to integrate us; she models the behavior. Our staff meetings have been combined with much discussion on how best we can integrate with each other. All ideas are welcome and encouraged. We have all questioned what our strengths are, and opportunities are in each unit and how to best work with these competing strengths. On one such occasion, we had a scheduling period that lacked strong clinical leadership on night shift in SICU due to a charge nurse's school schedule, Corrine viewed this as a perfect opportunity to begin integrating our staff. She encouraged the ANMs to schedule experienced MICU nurses to cover SICU and send new SICU nurses to MICU because they were staffed with experienced nurses. Again, the emphasis was on covering OUR unit, not covering SICU. When one unit does not have a PST, the staffed unit shares its PST so that both units are covered. Corrine has slowly helped us change our mindset from "SICU/MICU is staffed tonight" to "our unit is staffed tonight". While this sounds small, in actuality, these small changes have helped us change to a larger viewpoint. While we have not technically moved to our new critical care unit, appropriately named MSICU, we feel more prepared than we anticipated feeling a year ago. Although we do not expect perfection, and we know we will face some challenges as we continue our integration, we do feel optimistic with Corrine Graham as our leader.