June Rickers is not only one of our most clinically competent nurses in the ICU, but instantly she bonds with families due to her heart of gold! This past week June exemplified the essence of what makes a nurse worthy of the DAISY Award.
Her weekend began on Thursday afternoon when assigned a young mentally challenged female patient who was hemodynamically unstable. June not only took on a critical patient as a 1:1 nurse assignment, due to her need of continuous dialysis but she also oriented another co-worker to the tedious process.
June cared for this extremely unstable patient throughout the whole weekend, all the while constantly attending to the family and reassuring them. She was continuously explaining the complex equipment and multiple medications. She allowed the family full access into the ICU to see their loved one, whom they had cared for at home prior to her hospital admission. Without a delay in care, June took the patient's sister, who was a senior in nursing school and very overwhelmed, under her wing to explain in detail the patient's care, equipment, and meds. Her actions defined the competence and skill it takes to be a professional nurse. June acted, as a true role model for a nursing student, who I am sure, will strive to emulate her. In the end, modern medicine could not save this young women's life, and ultimately June mourned along with the family. She had just spent three emotion-filled days with the family and they thanked her profusely for her effort and care.
The patient's sister came back into the ICU later in the week to personally thank June for her compassion and expertise saying, "even though the patient was her sister it was one of the best clinical experiences she could have ever been given." She was very humbled and she was proud to have chosen nursing as her profession.