April 2020
Denise
Plunk
,
BSN, RN
PACU
Methodist North Hospital
Memphis
,
TN
United States
I would like to recognize Denise Plunk and Roz Cox. These nurses are excellent, knowledgeable, and compassionate nurses in their own specialties. They do a lot of behind the scenes work to assure that patients are safe and satisfied on the day of surgery.
A case that recently happened presents their true personalities and passion for nursing was when they handled a patient who was transferred from South for Surgery. The plan was for this patient to transfer from South to North for her surgery, then transferred back to South to be discharged home. Most workers would not have questioned this plan, but not Denise and Roz. As they were speaking to the patient and her mom, the patient said, "why do I have to go back to South, why can't I be discharged after surgery, my mom drove here, so I can go home with her." Both Denise and Roz looked into this case and made numerous phone calls to the surgeon, nurses at South, and the admitting physician. They found out the plan was to discharge her once she was transferred. They were given the orders to discharge her after surgery if there were no complications.
You would think the work was done, but no, now the hard part started. They had to work with resignation to ensure the patient could be departed from SDS. Most nurses do not know behind the scenes paperwork that is needed to ensure the proper documentation is completed in the computer. This whole process took about a few hours to get all of the documentation arranged. Denise and Roz did all of this arranging while the patient was in the operating room, so by the time the patient woke up, they could give her and her mother the good news. The patient and her mother were elated. They couldn't stop thanking Denise and Roz. This is a great example of a couple of nurses "going above and beyond" for a patient. The two of them told the patient and her mother, "we were just doing our job, no thanks are needed."
A case that recently happened presents their true personalities and passion for nursing was when they handled a patient who was transferred from South for Surgery. The plan was for this patient to transfer from South to North for her surgery, then transferred back to South to be discharged home. Most workers would not have questioned this plan, but not Denise and Roz. As they were speaking to the patient and her mom, the patient said, "why do I have to go back to South, why can't I be discharged after surgery, my mom drove here, so I can go home with her." Both Denise and Roz looked into this case and made numerous phone calls to the surgeon, nurses at South, and the admitting physician. They found out the plan was to discharge her once she was transferred. They were given the orders to discharge her after surgery if there were no complications.
You would think the work was done, but no, now the hard part started. They had to work with resignation to ensure the patient could be departed from SDS. Most nurses do not know behind the scenes paperwork that is needed to ensure the proper documentation is completed in the computer. This whole process took about a few hours to get all of the documentation arranged. Denise and Roz did all of this arranging while the patient was in the operating room, so by the time the patient woke up, they could give her and her mother the good news. The patient and her mother were elated. They couldn't stop thanking Denise and Roz. This is a great example of a couple of nurses "going above and beyond" for a patient. The two of them told the patient and her mother, "we were just doing our job, no thanks are needed."