Joseph Nguyen, BSN, RN

My boyfriend was in the ICU at CMC Mercy. I spent as much time as I could with him during his hospitalization, but between being in school and working full-time, I couldn't be there full-time as well, unfortunately. That being said, J was lucky to have such a caring and dedicated team of healthcare professionals looking after him. He and I agreed on one nurse in particular who stood out among the rest.

The nurse's name is "JJ," or Joseph N. Unfortunately, I'm not sure of his last name and couldn't find it in MyChart. I believe JJ was J's nurse for three separate nights.

We found JJ to be remarkably thorough, detail-oriented, humble, meticulous, persistent, and deeply caring. I don't think anything we witnessed went way above and beyond the call of duty, but it's the fact that he did all of these things. JJ left us with the feeling that no stone would be left unturned in J's care and attention to J's case.

Here are some examples:

JJ would begin his shift with J by thoroughly reviewing J's chart, tidying up J's room, and physically assessing J. JJ always cleaned up after the previous nurses and made sure to clean up after himself.

J frequently came in and out of fevers while in the hospital, and JJ made these fevers his personal enemy, making sure J's armpits and groin always had ice packs fresh from the freezer, a fresh, wet, cool towel on J's forehead, and timely Tylenol. He would come in at intervals much more frequent than any other caretaker to check on J's fever (especially when J's condition was more critical; JJ, of course, allowed J to rest as much as one can in an ICU)

JJ was also very attentive to checking J's lung sounds as J was suffering from pneumonia in both lungs and a pulmonary embolism in one.

Another example of this attentiveness involved J's medications. J had been hospitalized out of state a couple of weeks before his stay at Mercy, and this was documented in his chart as recent history. JJ was thorough enough to ask about any medications J was prescribed during that visit and whether he was taking them; because of JJ's line of inquiry, I brought J's meds to his room. The night the meds arrived, JJ reached out to the pharmacy to reconcile J's prescription history to include these meds, but I believe JJ didn't hear back that night. The meds sat on the table at J's bedside, and several shifts later, JJ was back to being J's nurse. JJ noted that the meds were still on the table and asked whether they had been reconciled yet or if J had spoken with the pharmacy; he hadn't, so JJ made certain to get the pharmacist's attention about these medications. They had been sitting next to J for somewhere between 2-4 shifts without any other healthcare provider saying anything about them,

JJ was also the only person throughout J's stay who attended to J's hygiene, making sure that before JJ clocked out for the day, J was wiped down and wearing fresh clothes before doing patient handoff with the day crew.

One interaction I witnessed that impressed me most was when JJ drew blood from J for his regular clotting factor tests. At this point, J was on IV heparin. JJ sent the blood to the lab, but the results came back as an unreasonable number, and JJ explained that it may have had to do with where he drew the blood from on J's arm. He drew it from an established line in an attempt to avoid having to unnecessarily stick J again, but also took care to make sure it had been enough time after J had finished his heparin that the heparin wouldn't screw up the score.

When the numbers came back out of whack, JJ immediately took personal responsibility and apologized to J, and drew blood from J's other arm so that hopefully the lab could pull more accurate results.

I went to the bathroom at some point, and when I came back to the room, JJ was consulting with the provider on staff for the evening, describing what had happened. From what I could tell, the provider seemed to be explaining to JJ that he had done everything correctly under the circumstances. In my eyes, JJ owned up to a mistake and actively tried to figure out how to prevent it in the future.

JJ was nothing but forthright with us about what he was doing and why. When he was unsure about something, he consulted with others. He was the utmost professional with us, especially J, and he made it clear that he takes pride in his work and cares about what he does, and that he cares about his patients too.

Early on in J's stay, one of his doctors started ordering lactulose at regular intervals, likely because of the narcotics J was on for pain. J had this drug administered once or twice before having JJ as a nurse. When JJ saw the lactulose order, he asked J about his bowel movements and explained that lactulose is a very strong laxative, and that J could likely be on something less potent, but he encouraged us to look up the drug ourselves so J could make his own decision. J agreed with JJ and JJ recommended colace and was switched to this drug that night.

If JJ was our server at a restaurant, we would have tipped him 100%. I made sure to take a picture of the DAISY Award flyers on my way in and out of the hospital for visits because I was racking my brain for some way to let JJ know how deeply we appreciated him and how much he stood out.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need additional information or have any questions or concerns.