Julia took care of a patient during her most recent readmission. This was yet another readmission for this patient following her delivery in January 2022. She experienced nearly every possible postpartum complication including recurrent surgeries and infections. While most of the pediatric team is aware of her previous medical complications, Julia has gone above and beyond to ensure that this particular admission was at least better than her previous one. Julia made sure that this patient was directly admitted to pediatrics so that there was no delay in getting her to a unit where the care team was already familiar with her history.

Julia decorated her room for Halloween so that her son could trick-or-treat since she was forced to stay inpatient on her son's first Halloween. Every single day that this patient was on the pediatric unit and Julia was working, Julia brought her a brownie to try and cheer her up. She made sure that her son and her husband could come to visit her whenever they wanted. She took her on trips outside so that this patient could have some fresh air. Julia also advocated for her by requesting a care conference with her care team. She reached out to her nursing leadership to pull in all of the possible different disciplines to review this patient's case and make sure that we were doing the best possible things for her. She advocated for having specialty pharmacists review her previous admissions, infections, medications, and trends. She requested that the infectious disease doctor review her case to make sure we weren’t missing any other possible infectious or immunologic etiologies.

She advocated to make sure that the surgery team carefully considered her previous complications and her current state. She advocated for daily in-person rounding by the surgeon to make sure that they were carefully assessing her and hearing the patient's concerns. She was a voice for her by pushing to make sure that we had the best possible vascular access device, so as to avoid repeated blood clot developments, while also preserving her veins as best as we could. This patient was adamant that she did not want another PICC line after her previous DVTs that had developed so Julia advocated having as many medications as they could converted to oral medications and protect her veins. She identified that this patient wanted information presented using percentages and ratios because that was how she processed information best. Julia requested dietary’s participation to ensure there were no gaps in her dietary requirements as she healed from an abdominal surgery. She spoke up about the potential negatives to this patient having an NG placed - she did not want it to interfere with the bonding with her son and did not want her son to accidentally dislodge it.

Julia went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure this patient could have a preserved (and hopefully improved) quality of life. If one were to review the ANA scope and standards of practice, Julia’s care of this patient was an extraordinary example of each standard. Julia is always an amazing nurse, and anyone would be lucky to have someone like her caring for them.