jennifer kirk, RN

I would like to recognize the outstanding performance of Jennifer. My husband has spent 7 of the last 9 months at USC with an LVAD awaiting, to receive a heart transplant. Our story with Jennifer begins the morning after a late afternoon move of a Swan device. He woke up with a fever of 103. The doctors rounded and had the Swan device removed but left the other line in. Initially his fever went down but shortly after began to rise again. Jennifer called the doctors who were busy with other patients. Soon she said she started to think that he was septic. Unable to reach the doctors she alerted her manager and was relentless until the appropriate doctor responded to remove everything. She was very calm, and collected with us until things were under control. My husband had contracted a staph infection and we credit it to Jennifer's attentiveness with saving his life. While my husband was home recovering from the staph infection, I had eye surgery done, which left me temporarily unsafe to drive. As a result, upon our return from USC, I was careless. Well, Jennifer steps in to save the day again. She offered us and has provided me rides to and from the hospital to home.
Does the story end there? No. After my husband's transplant, which did not go smoothly, I felt he was too sick for me to go home at all, so Jennifer to the rescue again. She went to my neighbor's house once a week to retrieve my mail and delivered it to me. She gave me her personal cell and said to call her if I needed anything. Talk about going above and beyond! The criteria for DAISY Award is professional, knowledgeable, kind, helpful, caring, and a leader not only does Jennifer represent each characteristic but goes above and beyond each of them in every way imaginable! In our opinion, Jennifer's amazing dedication to her job and patients and their families should be used as an example top strive for. USC should be proud to have someone of Jennifer's caliber representing them.