I have known David for more than 10 years and his consistent professional leadership and relationships with patients, families, peers, and ancillary staff is exemplary.
Recently, I cross-trained from inpatient APP TCV Surgery Services (4 west) to APP Ambulatory Vascular Surgery Clinic. I have no doubt, many APPs working between inpatient services and outpatient services can tell you the workflow is unique. In the clinic environment, I had many questions regarding clinic workflow, templates, patient workups, and attendings' preferences. David always made himself available to me to provide guidance, leadership and mentoring no matter how busy he was with his own caseload. In fact, my success as an APP in the vascular surgery clinic is directly linked to David's support.
As a new face in the vascular surgery clinic, approximately 95-99% of patients I served asked about David. He would consistently go out of his way to show kindness and greet these patients and their families. The smiles on the patients and their loved ones would just bring the sunshine indoors no matter what the weather conditions were like outside.
When patients would arrive to clinic without appointments for various concerns for non-healing wounds or lower extremity pain (list not inclusive), no matter how packed the clinic schedule was, David always made time to fit these patients into the existing clinic schedules. David is an extraordinary caregiver who consistently shows compassion for patients and their health concerns, professional leadership, engaging collaboration, and clinical expertise. Many of these patients would spontaneously arrive without appointments met requirements for direct inpatient admission for life-limiting and/or life threatening health concerns necessitating intravenous antibiotic therapy and/or vascular surgery. David would set everything up for inpatient admission then take patients in wheelchairs himself directly to the office of admissions because he understood hospitalized care was acutely needed to reduce disability, mortality, and improve patient outcomes.
David also chairs the monthly Vascular Surgery QST. Indeed, this robust QST forum is well attended by vascular and interventional radiology surgeons as well as ancillary team members from vascular lab, physical therapy, operating room, inpatient and outpatient APPs from vascular surgery and interventional radiology, EPIC builder, stroke unit nursing representative, inpatient and outpatient managers, heart and vascular RN navigators, and a statistician. I participate and watch in awe as David navigates this extremely high quality and high functioning team to improve patient outcomes in vascular surgery populations.
Furthermore, David is a dedicated professor who serves as an Assistant Professor to the University of Virginia SON graduate program for Advanced Practice Nursing. As his former student, I can personally attest to his powerhouse intellect and clinical expertise in the care of acutely ill patients.
David consistently delivers high-quality, relationship-based nursing care in accordance with UVA Health's organizational goals and Professional Practice Nursing Model: Empowered Leaders, Expert Caring, Innovation, Lifelong learners, and Quality Achievement. He is a true DAISY Nurse.
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We would like to recognize David Strider, NP. I originally was a cardiac and thoracic NP but was informed we were merging with vascular surgery inpatient. We merged as a team, and then two APPs in the vascular surgery clinic moved on to other jobs. I was asked to help in clinic, and began coming to clinic. I then recruited other APPs on my team to help out in clinic. As we were new to vascular surgery and now new to helping the vascular surgery clinic, we needed a lot of guidance. One thing was always consistent in that David Strider was there. The feeling is mutual among my colleagues in that Vascular Surgery clinic would not function without David Strider. No matter what he was doing or how busy he was in the moment, he would drop everything to help you with your questions or go to see a patient with you. I had many questions in the beginning from how to interpret testing, what test to order, wound checks, and when to see the patient again. He always has an amazing attitude and extremely gracious with his time. I have been down in clinic multiple times since May, and I have continued to be amazed by his attitude and dedication to the job. His attitude and helpfulness ultimately help patients. By helping us, we were able to see patients quicker and be more effective. When I cannot find a patient's pulse and need to bring in David I let the patient know. Patients will say, "Yea, I know David, he's great." On the other hand, if they were expecting David, they ask where he is and seem disappointed that he is not there. Every patient I have ever mentioned David's name to always knows who he is. He is the staple of vascular surgery and deserves recognition. I believe he matches all the criteria for a DAISY Award Nurse with the top criteria being: he goes above and beyond, team-oriented, dependable, identified by patients, and professional. My colleagues and I cannot say enough nice things about David Strider.
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Heart and vascular would not be what it is today without David Strider. I have had the pleasure of working with him in the surgery clinic and he makes every day incredibly rewarding. He has taken the time to teach not just me but the four additional APPs who have transitioned from inpatient to an outpatient environment. He stops whatever he is doing to help us with the most trivial tasks, and strives beyond measure to deliver the best patient care. Multiple times I have seen him help room patients, bring them to the lab/imaging suites, bring them water, turnover rooms, and assure that our wound care NP has all the extra hands she needs. Not a day goes by where a patient doesn't ask, "Where's David today?" He emulates his love for academics by teaching a group of NP students via Webex every Thursday. Despite the pandemic, he has also continued to oversee and raise donations for an OB clinic in Africa remotely. Furthermore, his weekends are routinely spent picking up RN shifts in the SPU and ED. Amidst all this work, he somehow manages to run a vascular QST meeting monthly with a 20+ person turn out each time. He does not think of himself as an NP but rather part of the Vascular Surgery TEAM, which remains a vital component of our UVA values. He deserves every award in the world and I am SO grateful that I get the opportunity to work with David.
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I would like to recognize David Strider, nurse practitioner for vascular surgery for all his hard work and dedication to our service. I recently started rotating through vascular clinic and coming from the inpatient world, clinic was very different from what I was used to. David was very supportive and a great resource to have. Anytime I was uncertain about anything related to patient care or clinic protocols I could always count on David to help me figure things out, no matter what he was doing at the time. I want him to know that his work ethic is notable and appreciated very much.
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David has a heart of gold and exemplifies the caring associated with our profession. From always being eager to help and answer questions in clinic to the work he does outside of clinic such as working in the COVID unit on the weekends to his medical mission work in Africa, he goes above and beyond to make sure his peers and patients are taken care of. He also has a positive attitude and I have never heard him complain despite challenges and changes associated with this year. UVA is very fortunate to have such a great leader and role model.