Kumhee Kim
December 2021
Kumhee
Kim
,
RN
Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit
Dignity Health Mercy San Juan Medical Center
Carmichael
,
CA
United States

 

 

 

Nurse Kim was the most experienced nurse present and jumped in to continue to help stabilize this patient, and to save his life.
I wanted to bring to your attention one of your most incredible nurses, Kumhee Kim, RN, who works both in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and in the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit. Recently, I had admitted, via the emergency department, a 60-year-old man experiencing an extensive anterior wall myocardial infarction. He was in cardiogenic shock and critically ill. He was brought to the Cath Lab and underwent emergency revascularization with coronary stenting, while receiving pressor medication for his perilously low BP, and who had required an intra-aortic balloon pump for stabilization. After his successful procedure, he was transferred to the CSICU, still critically compromised. As is often the case, this was in the middle of the night. Nurse Kim was the most experienced nurse present and jumped in to continue to help stabilize this patient, and to save his life, although she had been on call for the Cath Lab and not working in the CSICU at the time. Unflinchingly, though it had not been "her job", she did not hesitate to lend her expertise to improve the patient's compromised situation. It is this commitment to excellence, sacrifice, and compassion that she evidenced, which I have seen in her and marks her an amazing nurse and human being. She truly epitomizes the wonderful nursing we are blessed to have at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, which makes our institution so very special.