I was lucky enough to have met Pam close to her retirement. Pam has a wealth of knowledge. The more I dig, the more it comes out. She is compassionate, caring, respectful, intelligent, and a professional nurse. She always tries to go the extra mile to do what we need for the patients and her peers. Pam is a leader in our device team in the KP Washington region. Even though she is at the end of her career, she is always enthusiastic and happy to carry out her job with passion and respect for patients and her teammates.

Pam is compassionate with patients and family. When patients come to the clinic for device checks, Pam always spends more time listening to her patients' concerns than talking. Most patients walked out of the clinic with a smile on their faces because they trust that Pam is working in their best interests. Pam is not only working well with patients and family; she is also communicating effectively with providers.

As Pam gets closer to her retirement, some providers stated, "What can we do without you?" When the device team is running short of staff to train a new nurse on the device, Pam volunteered to take the responsibility to teach even though she only has a couple of months left before heading to her retirement. Pam wrote an e-mail that the device training with her would be fun. I didn't respond because I was skeptical. After the second day, the third day, and the fourth day with Pam, I have had so much fun and passion for this fascinating job. Pam has gone above and beyond to make sure I was appropriately trained, and she has allowed me to learn and ask questions. She never put me down for asking "the silly questions." I gained more confidence and felt as easy as Pam.

Then I started having a dialogue with her about each patient we worked together. After being with her four times, I felt confident and wanted to shout to the world that "I will make it through the device training. I am going to be a device nurse." In summary, our Olympia Kaiser Permanente cardiology clinic can't be prouder to have a nurse like Pam. She has preserved the struggles of short staffing of device nurses training more nurses for our clinic and team. She is not only helping to reduce burnout for our team, keeping patients safe, helping our staff safe, but she sets an example for our team as an exceptional nurse. Thanks, Pam, for renewing my faith in humanity. Pam is the nurse that we all hope to have at our side. Kaiser is so lucky to have Pam as a true frontline hero and as an above and beyond compassionate, extraordinary nurse.