August 2026 Honoree
Maizie Lee, RN
I am writing this commendation for a colleague of mine, Maizie Lee. Maizie takes exemplary care of all of her patients, but her care of this particular patient and his husband truly demonstrated the power of having a brilliant, empathetic, attentive nurse.
Maizie was the primary bedside nurse the night that this patient arrived from the operating room. The patient came in for a planned abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, and the surgery had multiple complications. The patient ended up receiving approximately 100 units of blood products between the operating room and the ICU. Maizie was the admitting nurse when he arrived in the ICU, and from the moment he arrived, she took charge of his care with her usual, determined, dedicated approach. She helped the patient’s husband understand what had happened to the patient, and over the course of 12 days, she cared for this patient for six of those nights.
The patient experienced multiple setbacks, including ARDS following his massive transfusion that required proning, an acute kidney injury that eventually required CRRT, and decompensated cirrhosis, which was ultimately what led the patient’s husband to make the decision to allow the patient to pass away. On the day that the patient passed away, the patient’s husband told the charge nurse, “We should probably tell Maizie.” For the patient’s husband to think about Maizie in the midst of the decision to let his husband pass is a testament to the impact that she had on both the patient's care and his husband’s experience of something unimaginable. The patient was able to pass peacefully with his husband lying next to him.
Throughout this patient's stay with us in the surgical ICU, Maizie developed a connection with the patient’s husband that was founded out of empathy in its most basic form. I listened to her as she talked the patient’s husband through the seemingly impossible task of leaving every night, because he, like many others, couldn’t fathom how to walk out of the hospital and leave his husband with us. I heard him tell Maizie how it made him feel so much better to know that she was there with his husband.
I heard the phone calls Maizie had with the husband when he would call to check in at night, and heard her make him laugh, even in the middle of such a tragedy. I listened to her as she helped explain every new, confusing, devastating setback in terms that he could process with incredible patience and kindness. By the end of his 12-day stay in the ICU, Maizie had such a full picture of both the patient and his husband as human beings and their short time together. So often we forget that the people that end up in our beds are people who have lived as fully as we have, and have found themselves in the midst of a tragedy. We are taught to protect ourselves from the grief that we see every day so that we can keep doing our job, but sometimes we protect ourselves a little too effectively.
Maizie exemplifies the human aspect of nursing better than anyone else I know. She is able to see her patients and the people they love fully and clearly. Watching her care for this man and his husband reminded me that this job is supposed to make you feel something. Watching Maizie allow herself to feel the devastation and the love that existed simultaneously as this man watched his husband fight and then pass on was a poignant reminder of the impact of our work. Maizie changed the trajectory of this man’s experience of tragedy, and brought him some measure of peace in a time when peace seemed unreachable. I believe she truly embodies the spirit of what it means to do this wonderful, gut-wrenching, life-changing job.
Maizie was the primary bedside nurse the night that this patient arrived from the operating room. The patient came in for a planned abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, and the surgery had multiple complications. The patient ended up receiving approximately 100 units of blood products between the operating room and the ICU. Maizie was the admitting nurse when he arrived in the ICU, and from the moment he arrived, she took charge of his care with her usual, determined, dedicated approach. She helped the patient’s husband understand what had happened to the patient, and over the course of 12 days, she cared for this patient for six of those nights.
The patient experienced multiple setbacks, including ARDS following his massive transfusion that required proning, an acute kidney injury that eventually required CRRT, and decompensated cirrhosis, which was ultimately what led the patient’s husband to make the decision to allow the patient to pass away. On the day that the patient passed away, the patient’s husband told the charge nurse, “We should probably tell Maizie.” For the patient’s husband to think about Maizie in the midst of the decision to let his husband pass is a testament to the impact that she had on both the patient's care and his husband’s experience of something unimaginable. The patient was able to pass peacefully with his husband lying next to him.
Throughout this patient's stay with us in the surgical ICU, Maizie developed a connection with the patient’s husband that was founded out of empathy in its most basic form. I listened to her as she talked the patient’s husband through the seemingly impossible task of leaving every night, because he, like many others, couldn’t fathom how to walk out of the hospital and leave his husband with us. I heard him tell Maizie how it made him feel so much better to know that she was there with his husband.
I heard the phone calls Maizie had with the husband when he would call to check in at night, and heard her make him laugh, even in the middle of such a tragedy. I listened to her as she helped explain every new, confusing, devastating setback in terms that he could process with incredible patience and kindness. By the end of his 12-day stay in the ICU, Maizie had such a full picture of both the patient and his husband as human beings and their short time together. So often we forget that the people that end up in our beds are people who have lived as fully as we have, and have found themselves in the midst of a tragedy. We are taught to protect ourselves from the grief that we see every day so that we can keep doing our job, but sometimes we protect ourselves a little too effectively.
Maizie exemplifies the human aspect of nursing better than anyone else I know. She is able to see her patients and the people they love fully and clearly. Watching her care for this man and his husband reminded me that this job is supposed to make you feel something. Watching Maizie allow herself to feel the devastation and the love that existed simultaneously as this man watched his husband fight and then pass on was a poignant reminder of the impact of our work. Maizie changed the trajectory of this man’s experience of tragedy, and brought him some measure of peace in a time when peace seemed unreachable. I believe she truly embodies the spirit of what it means to do this wonderful, gut-wrenching, life-changing job.
Thank you, Maizie, for your exceptional compassion, advocacy, and dedication to your patients. You truly make a difference.
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