During her clinical rotation, Quynh had the opportunity to care for a patient who was clearly at the end of life but whose family was not amenable to placing the patient on comfort care and kept her a FULL code. The patient had a lot of medical problems that worsened with each passing day. The patient's condition had deteriorated to the point where an ethics consult to determine if the treatments were futile was next to be considered.

On the last day that Quynh cared for this patient the Critical Care Medical Team organized a family meeting to discuss the patient's current status and goals of care. Quynh attended this meeting and listened to how the medical team presented the information to the family. After the family meeting, Quynh came to me with many questions. She was quite frustrated with the fact that she felt the team was not as forthcoming in painting the actual clinical picture of the patient as she had thought they would be. We talked about how these conversations can go and that it is a balancing act of trying to humbly paint the actual picture but at the same time not to seem callous and unfeeling to the family. Some practitioners are better at this than others. Quynh understood this patient was at the end of life, and having just lost her father to cancer a few months prior, it hit home to her how the truth for her was more important than painting false hope.

The amount of courage it took for Quynh to attend that family meeting cannot be underestimated. Her love of nursing and being a patient advocate took precedence over her feelings of loss and grief. The bravery she showed that day is so indicative of Quynh's commitment to her patients and the profession of nursing.