Erika is a new RN who is coming up on her 1 year of nursing this corning June. However, you would never know it. She is an outstanding nurse, who truly hit the ground running. She is constantly helping out her teammates, looking to take on tasks with more of a leadership role, is training new RNs on the MSICU, and is a Donate Life caregiver. Erika always takes pride in caring for organ donors. She is enthusiastic when she learns that she will be caring for an organ donor during her shift. Now, if you have never cared for an organ donor, it is not an easy task. As a nurse, you essentially become the brain of the donor, having to operate to make sure that every single organ functions in tip-top shape for it to be allocated to save a recipient's life. Extensive testing, re-testing, blood draws, proning, medications being added, subtracted, titrated, and changed constantly, transports to cath lab, to CT, to MRI, etc. Not to mention having to support family at bedside. This can be extremely taxing on the team and the nurse. Erika, has never been flustered. She will sit in on family meetings to support them and provide comfort that is needed. She never bats an eye when we have to tell her that we need to go for another test because a transplant surgeon is requesting further diagnostics to evaluate an organ for allocation. She stays positive, and creates such a positive vibe that becomes infectious to the whole unit.

One of our most recent organ donor case, Erika truly went above and beyond. While we were navigating through the challenges of having a helicopter land at Saint Francis with the liver transplant team from New York, because their recipient was not going to make it the night without that liver transplant, Erika made sure that no one forgot about the patient being a special individual who was able to give that recipient the gift of life. She cared about honoring him, providing him dignity, and showing him the respect he deserved. She took the time to bathe him with eucalyptus body wash, fresh sheets, washed and brushed hair and teeth. She did this, not for family, because they were not coming back to the hospital, but for him. She wanted everyone to know who he was as an individual. She wanted to make sure that when he was transported into the OR, and all the recovery surgeons from different centers saw him, they didn't just see a patient, or an organ donor, but a human being. Erika Leonard is a special breed of nurse and deserves to be recognized.