Katherine McGinnis
February 2023
Katherine
McGinnis
,
BSN, RN, CCRN
Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
Children's Hospital Colorado
Aurora
,
CO
United States
It truly was the most in-depth and real-time learning experience of my career. And ever since then, I have been in awe of her knowledge capacity.
Katie is probably the most knowledgeable RN that we have in the CICU. Her capacity to retain knowledge is amazing. But the thing that makes this skill of hers DAISY worthy is the fact that she doesn’t keep this knowledge to herself. She is constantly sharing this knowledge with her peers on our unit all the time.
I had the wonderful opportunity to have Katie as a preceptor when I moved to the CICU several years ago. She had this amazing ability to assess where my knowledge deficits were and adjust my learning to make the most of my time during orientation. One day in particular we had a patient on some pretty high amounts of vasopressors. I didn’t understand why we were choosing to wean the vasopressin over the epi. We sat down and talked about how both of them were working for us. We looked up each med on the formulary. We talked about the potential side effects of each and assessed what we were seeing and not seeing in our patient...as well as why that was driving what drips we would wean first. It truly was the most in-depth and real-time learning experience of my career. And ever since then, I have been in awe of her knowledge capacity.
A more recent example of Katie sharing her knowledge is shown in how she is an easy resource for our staff to approach if they have a question. One of our new graduate nurses had to start an infusion he was unfamiliar with. In order to get it started he needed to make some baseline assessments first and use an infusion set he was unfamiliar with. It was like watching my orientation happen again before my eyes. With the same amount of passion as she had given me, Katie sat down with him and discussed this med he was unfamiliar with. I overheard them reading policies and formularies. I heard them talking about what adverse effects to look out for. I hear them talking about what safety supplies needed to be available. And all of this happened while she also had a patient assignment of her own. She was willing to give that much of her time and energy to another nurse on top of her own responsibilities.
The thing I love most in her approach when helping answer questions is that she never just gives you the answer. She teaches you how to find answers so that if you have a similar question in the future you can search for the answer on your own. It's like that old adage “If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime”. Katie is in it for our lifetimes!
These are only two examples of them many times Katie has gone above and beyond to educate our staff, both new and experienced. She continually makes herself available to others outside of her own assignment and responsibilities to help expand the knowledge and safe practices of her peers. She is a true DAISY Nurse.
I had the wonderful opportunity to have Katie as a preceptor when I moved to the CICU several years ago. She had this amazing ability to assess where my knowledge deficits were and adjust my learning to make the most of my time during orientation. One day in particular we had a patient on some pretty high amounts of vasopressors. I didn’t understand why we were choosing to wean the vasopressin over the epi. We sat down and talked about how both of them were working for us. We looked up each med on the formulary. We talked about the potential side effects of each and assessed what we were seeing and not seeing in our patient...as well as why that was driving what drips we would wean first. It truly was the most in-depth and real-time learning experience of my career. And ever since then, I have been in awe of her knowledge capacity.
A more recent example of Katie sharing her knowledge is shown in how she is an easy resource for our staff to approach if they have a question. One of our new graduate nurses had to start an infusion he was unfamiliar with. In order to get it started he needed to make some baseline assessments first and use an infusion set he was unfamiliar with. It was like watching my orientation happen again before my eyes. With the same amount of passion as she had given me, Katie sat down with him and discussed this med he was unfamiliar with. I overheard them reading policies and formularies. I heard them talking about what adverse effects to look out for. I hear them talking about what safety supplies needed to be available. And all of this happened while she also had a patient assignment of her own. She was willing to give that much of her time and energy to another nurse on top of her own responsibilities.
The thing I love most in her approach when helping answer questions is that she never just gives you the answer. She teaches you how to find answers so that if you have a similar question in the future you can search for the answer on your own. It's like that old adage “If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime”. Katie is in it for our lifetimes!
These are only two examples of them many times Katie has gone above and beyond to educate our staff, both new and experienced. She continually makes herself available to others outside of her own assignment and responsibilities to help expand the knowledge and safe practices of her peers. She is a true DAISY Nurse.