Natalie Montes is the nurse we all want caring for our family members. She is kind, compassionate, and takes pride in her daily work. She provides thorough teaching with her patients while sitting at their bedside, ensuring she explains in a way they can understand. Natalie role models all the standards of professional behavior and above all else demonstrates empathy and lends a listening ear to all her patients and families. A colleague wrote, "Possessing a warm personality, Natalie works to provide the best care to her patients. Every day, she evidences commitment toward each patient's individual needs and develops therapeutic relationships with them. Setting daily goals with her patients and working diligently to advocate for their needs, Natalie's patients always feel well cared for and nurtured. Her calm, professional, and meticulous demeanor promotes optimal healing environments and experiences for her patients and their families."
Furthermore, her former preceptor and current APSM states that "Natalie comes to work every day with a positive attitude and can always brighten the mood of her co-workers. She probably doesn't realize what a positive impact she has on the unit. She is highly regarded by her co-workers; she is kind, compassionate, and is always willing to go the extra mile. Not only her co-workers notice her positivity, but also her patients repeatedly recognize her as an excellent nurse."
Mr. R, a 32-year-old male, with no previous medical history to note. He had never come to a hospital prior to when he came to the hospital with abdominal pain. Was diagnosed with a hernia, received treatment and discharged home. This patient then came back to Yale two months later with a mass on his scrotum and in excruciating pain. This mass was biopsied and came back as cancerous. This relatively healthy 32-year-old was now being told in three months that he had stage IV NK T-cell lymphoma. Fast forward to this past fall, and this patient was admitted to EP 4-7 for new onset headaches, difficulty finding his words, and difficulty swallowing. Natalie was meant to care for this patient for this short 12-hour shift.
During her assessment, he was cooperative and able to answer questions, but was in the middle of one of his terrible headaches and needed something for the pain. She was able to provide him pain medication quickly, but then knew something was wrong when the covering provider went out of his way to find her and say, "This man needs this MRI stat and then we need to get him to Smilow immediately for his chemo treatment." She explained the goal was for him to receive his MRI of his brain and to hopefully transfer to Smilow at some point during the night so he could start his next cycle of chemo. Mr. R looked at Natalie and replied, "I need to get going with my next round of chemo. I will do whatever you say to help me get to that."
Natalie wanted everything she learned in nursing school and throughout her nursing career to be wrong. Unfortunately, Mr. R had these new-onset neurologic symptoms that given his cancer diagnosis, all any medical professional could think is that his cancer had metastasized to his brain. Mr. R went down for his MRI and just a few hours later Natalie could see the results of his MRI and unfortunately the cancer had in fact metastasized to his brain. Mr. R had his oncology team wake him up at 5 am to explain to him the new MRI findings. They left his bedside at 5:15 am and by 5:30 am he had a bed assigned to him at Smilow. When Natalie went back to the room to provide the patient an update, she found him embracing his mother stating, "We got this mom. We are going to beat this." Natalie showed her compassion and empathy and teared up at the sight she saw and provided emotional support to both the patient in his mother, sharing in their sorrow.
By early morning, Natalie was able to transfer this young man, who was very close to her own age, to emergently receive his much-needed chemotherapy. As transport came to wheel Mr. R away, the patient and his mother stopped and hugged Natalie. The patient said, "We accomplished the goal because of you. Do not ever stop advocating for your patients the way you did for me." Mr. R was right. The covering provider and Natalie were able to communicate in a way that they both heard what each other had to say and listened to each other. As a result, the patient had no delay in care, with swift action, dedication to do what was right for the patient, and provide emotional support along the way. This family was grateful for Natalie in that moment and as a leader on EP 4-7, this is one of those stories I will never forget. This is just one example of the kindness, professional, and compassionate nursing care Natalie demonstrates, but we have many others. This is the consistency she brings to her true calling in life; being a bedside leader.