McKenzie Costa, RN

We have a patient on 5 West who is here for catatonia and severe protein-calorie malnutrition. The patient was not taking her medications and/or eating, and that led to her hospitalization. Taking care of this patient required tremendous amount of patience and compassion and McKenzie demonstrated not only the skills to provide high quality care, but more importantly compassion and dedication to care for this patient.

The patient would only take medicines from McKenzie and only participate in her care when McKenzie was around and realizing that, she routinely came to the hospital on her day off, so the patient did not miss medication doses and continued to eat.

I have been at Riverside for 13 years now, and I have never seen this degree of dedication towards patient care. We always talk about “above and beyond”  - I think McKenzie’s actions and dedication are way above that!

Just to put this in perspective, even at an inpatient psychiatry facility with all their expertise in mental health, they could not provide the level of care and make the difference that McKenzie is able to do on a daily basis as we continue to make progress in treating this patient. She truly has a “healer's” touch.