Maddy has been with the VNA over 30yrs and was in the field seeing patients until 3 yrs ago. She started working with the cardiac monitoring team part-time and has been an important part of its success. She was going for her cardiac certification when COVID canceled her appointment to take the exam. She is always thinking and trying to make the team and department better. She continuously has great suggestions. For example, when COVID-19 hit and we were taking on COVID patients she suggested we provide another type to assist better assessment of these patients as our other note did not fit the population we were assessing. That was implemented and worked really well. That helped birth a similar note to be used for Pre-SOC calls. Maddy is also thinking about making our department better and really enjoys the patients and they enjoy and respect her greatly. Maddy only worked 4 days a week and knew we were shorthanded due to our 3rd nurse position being temporally held. We needed help. So Maddy along with Michele have been working 7 days a week for 8 weeks. Taking only a few hours a week off. If not for them helping to continue monitoring our fragile population of cardiac and COPD patients, I don't know how we could continue monitoring them 7 days a week. Without missing a beat, they continued to work 7 days not complaining and working hard. They had up to 50 patients at one point each. Many were COVID patients, very sick some having to deal with their own illness, and some the loss of a loved one. I am proud to nominate Maddy and Michele for going above and way beyond the call to duty.
Maddy like Michele have a story of an 80yr. old female who was being cared for by her 50yr old son who lost his life to COVID-19. Both were in the hospital around the same time. She survived and now was home and had to deal with memories of her son. She was new to oxygen, which had run out at our first conservation. She called the oxygen company who did supply her with another tank that same day. We put her on cardiac monitoring and with Maddy's help, she recovered from the COVID-19. She refused to become depressed over the loss of her son. She told Maddy it empowered her to become strong and independent. She was learning to take control of her life and to help herself. Her actions should make us all stop and appreciate our loved ones and not look inward but to look outward at helping others and help ourselves become stronger and that COVID-19 will not defeat our spirits.