Punya takes such great care of them with so much kindness and compassion! Most of the time, the families never have the opportunity to witness this amazing nurse at work since she is a night shift nurse, and many of our Veterans have dementia or severe illness that prevents them from being able to say this themselves. But I have had the honor of working side-by-side with her through my orientation process and she truly is an angel at the bedside, caring for them as if they were her own family and treating them with the highest degree of dignity.

One Veteran, in particular, was often confused, could barely speak, was immobile, and total care. This patient received the best, highest levels of care, where she went above and beyond to try to advocate for him regarding treating his pain that he could not verbalize or rate, but would say yes. She and I paged the nocturnist in the middle of the night for orders for anxiolytics to help with his anxiety, and when the orders did not come, she stayed at the bedside throughout the night, spoon-feeding him thickened water, careful to maintain safety from aspiration and continued to provide great care for hygiene, foley care, oral care, turning, and repositioning, all to treat his pain and care for him with all the dignity and respect he deserved. As he improved over the next several nights, she would speak softly and calmly to him and help ease his anxiety, coaching him to control his breathing, and cleaning him frequently to ensure that he stayed dry, clean, and refreshed as well as hydrated.

I really could go on and on about this one patient, but honestly, it was every patient that she would take the extra time to do all the “tasky” things, we as nurses are “expected” to do, but to the extreme of kindness and caring that sometimes is missed due to having heavy patient-loads and being busy.

Also, as a preceptor, she always made me feel confident and treated me with the respect that my experience and education warranted (without talking down to me or making me feel like a newbie). She is a true asset to the VA, and she is a wonderful teacher (I was also a nursing instructor before, so I can sometimes be a bit judgmental of others’ teaching styles if they do not meet my personal standards!)  Punya Walker is a real DAISY Nurse for her patient care and advocacy!