Mary Priest is by far the most dedicated, knowledgeable, and compassionate nurse I have had the joy and honor of working with during my 15 years in healthcare. She truly cares about the well-being of her patients and their families. Her kind and sensitive approach to patients is heartwarming and inspires me to go even further for my patients.

First of all, Mary always has a positive attitude, and no matter how hard the day is, she always remains upbeat, which truly brings up the mood of others around her. Even when she had a patient with a sixth episode of diarrhea during the day, she attended to him immediately with kindness and remained cheerful and attentive. I don’t think I have ever seen her lose her compassion and kindness towards her patients.

Secondly, she is consistently diligent in her work. No matter how much work there is, all the tasks are done in a timely fashion - urine is collected, sputum sample is sent, and families are updated. It is outstanding because it is challenging, day after day, to consistently and without fail take excellent care of each and every patient under the constraints. Somehow, she does manage through it! All her admissions and current patients have their medication lists reconciled, which is unparalleled. Last week, she called the pharmacy for medication reconciliation while the patient was still in the ED because she did not want to leave it for the oncoming night team! I have never seen anyone do that. When a specialist has not shown up to come and give final discharge recommendations, she took the initiative to call them by 11 am to expedite the discharge process. When she admits patients with limited life expectancy, she does the goals-of-care discussion on admission and has done this multiple times! I have never seen anyone care this much about her patients. This caring goes hand in hand with fierce advocacy for her patients, whether it be a short- or long-term treatment plan, evaluation by PT, engagement of family, or evaluation for hospice; Mary thinks of it all and will actively advocate during and beyond the interdisciplinary rounds.

Even more importantly, I find that her emotional intelligence is unparalleled among healthcare providers. She calibrates her approach according to the patient’s personality and knows intuitively who requires a gentle approach and who would benefit from a “tough love” approach or something in between. She is genuinely interested in her patients, and it is always a joy to discuss them with her because I get a better understanding of what the best approach is. And her patients can tell she cares about them, too! For example, it was difficult for me to find the right tone with a young patient whose care I had just taken over, as she was requesting opiates, and I wanted to make her understand we have her best interest at heart. Mary had been caring for her for two days and came into the room for the chat. She took over the conversation in a firm and kind manner, and her care and concern for the patient shone through so much that the patient accepted the management plan and thanked her for the explanation.

I would like to finish with another story that illustrates how wonderful a nurse Mary is. We shared a disheveled patient with a psychiatric history, including severe recurrent depression. While he was being evaluated for a medical issue, I tried every day to engage with him so that he would be a little less sad. Every day, I seemed to have failed, as he remained distant, irritable, and quick to lash out. Soft talking and hand holding, nothing helped. Then Mary was assigned to this patient, and she noted the same emotional distance. However, she also noted the dirt under the patient’s fingernails. As with many of her other patients, she sat down with him, soaked his fingers, cleaned and manicured his nails, and chatted with him. A little later, I walked into the room and found him with a glowing smile! What an amazing transformation it was to witness! I learned from Mary that day that sometimes, instead of talking, an act of caring might be the best approach with patients in emotional distress.

In summary, Mary Priest epitomizes the caring and dedicated nurse. It is a joy to work with her, not only because she is so upbeat and dedicated every day but also because I know that I can learn from her and improve my patient care.