Erin came to me with a patient concern early in the morning today. She was concerned that we were not addressing a patient's medical problem adequately and she had tried with other providers and was not getting anywhere.
This was a particularly difficult patient with altered mentation secondary to hypernatremia. Erin correctly identified that the patient was not in fact neurological or psychiatric but had more of an underlying renal issue as the root cause. Even though multiple subspecialists saw the patient and made recommendations, Erin did not think they were on the right track.
She convinced me to see the patient early and followed up with me as soon as I exited the room.
After I saw the patient, she did in fact have the classic history and features of nephrogenic diabetes insipidus secondary to 45 years of Lithium use. We changed the management and got nephrology involved. Nephrology agreed with the diagnosis and said that it is a difficult condition to diagnose and manage correctly.
Erin has always been a strong patient advocate for all the patients on her unit. She is the charge nurse but frequently pays attention to the patients as if she was the primary nurse for all 24 on 6A. She will continue to exhaust all avenues even if she cannot get the medical providers to support her right away.
Erin is an absolute asset to Bayhealth and a true DAISY Nurse.