Felicia Cartier is one of the main charge nurses. She is a nurse that we would all want to care for ourselves or our own family members. She displays kindness and compassion to all of the patients that she cares for and it is very easy to see, even when you are just meeting her for the first time, that she takes pride in her daily work. You will often find Felicia sitting at the bedside educating her patients and their families in ways that they can understand which ensures a smooth transition home. Felicia is a role model for all the standards of professional behavior and goes above and beyond to show empathy, never hesitating to lend a listening ear to all her patients and families.
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Felicia is always patient and willing to jump in. One quality I admire about her work ethic is she doesn't wait for you to ask for help. She advocates for both her patients and the other nurses in our unit.
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Felicia embodies what it means to be a nurse at YNHH, with her positive attitude, clinical expertise, and her dedication to teamwork. In my own experiences working with Felicia, I have witnessed her collaborating with MD's, PA's and case managers to ensure that the patients have positive outcomes.
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This is a very busy general medicine unit with the majority of private rooms, because of this it is not unusual for our unit to receive complicated cases. Felicia made a special connection with Ms. M. When she first arrived at the floor she was being treated for abdominal pain with nausea and vomiting. This diagnosis was relatively "normal" to Felicia as well as to the other staff, however, at the time we did not think that her case would end the way it did.
As Ms. M's test results one by one came back negative, we started to suspect a psychological diagnosis. Meeting with some reluctance from the providers, it took some persuading on Felicia's part to finally get psychiatry involved. This patient was receiving all medications intravenously due to her reports of nausea and emesis. Ms. M would report the inability to keep food down and because of that, she was placed on a clear liquid diet, for which she would never order anything. She had many personal belongings at the bedside brought in by her parents. Belongings ranging from clothes and toiletries to essential oils and beverages could be found. Her medication regimen consisted of IV Dilaudid, IV Ativan, and IV Zofran. All other medications were either held or Ms. M would refuse to take them.
Her palliative care doctor, who was also her outpatient physician, would come to the bedside every day to visit Ms. M. He would make recommendations and ultimately drive her plan of care. Given the patient's extensive history, frequency of medications and lengthy admission, without reservation, Felicia would gladly care for her. As her plan of care continued, Felicia became increasingly uncomfortable administering the large volumes of IV Dilaudid and Ativan when there was no clinical data to suggest a need for these meds. She arched up her concerns to unit management, who in turn reached out to the hospitalist management team.
Felicia was very involved in the daily team meetings regarding POC and weaning Ms. M's IV medication so she would be able to go home and tolerate PO meds. Psychiatry consulted they had diagnosed Ms. M with Munchausen's and had strongly advocated that the providers take slow progress to assure Ms. M would stay in extensive psychotherapy outpatient. Because of this, Ms. M stayed on our floor for 45 days.
Ms. M did not trust easily trust staff due to some questioning behavior on her part which caused the staff to have to call security to search her belongings. Because Felicia worked with Ms. M every shift that she was scheduled, she felt that it was her responsibility to execute this new plan of care with the patient since they had developed a strong trusting relationship. The plan of care was very extensive and had many moving parts and Felicia collaborated with the team daily to ensure that the plan was precisely orchestrated. Because of the complexity of this case, this was one of the first times that she found herself working this close with the primary team, consults, and management to execute a plan of care. Felicia was considered a very valuable part of the team and the providers listened to her concerns and suggestions. Not only did Felicia have a tremendous impact on this patient's care, but through this experience, you could see her confidence and leadership skills build.
Felicia developed a very strong and trusting relationship with Ms. M over her 45-day admission. To strengthen and solidify their relationship, Felicia would take the time each day to sit with her and have conversations about her life and previous care at other hospitals. In turn, and to further strengthen their relationship, Felicia would even share a little about her own life to make the patient feel that their relationship was not one-sided. By the end of her stay she had told Felicia that she considered her not only her nurse but her friend and thanked her for all their conversations and heart to hearts. Their nurse-patient relationship allowed Ms. M to open up, and accept a new plan of care, which finally lead to a successful discharge home.
Because Felicia took the time to explain exactly what each step taken would be and why every step was so important, the patient was ultimately weaned off of IV narcotics and was successfully discharged home. Felicia's incredible bedside manner and positive attitude helped her to gain the trust of a very apprehensive patient and her family.