Rayna goes above and beyond for all of her patients! One of our PKU patients suffered a devastating house fire this spring and lost everything. As soon as Rayna heard about the disaster, she started reaching out to anyone and everyone who would be able to offer help. She collected donations from our department, she reached out to a local book store who donated almost 100 books for the child, she connected with a kids' clothing store who offered a significant discount and utilized the department's donations to purchase clothes for the child, she collected home goods, and cash donations for the family. Because of her determination to help this family our department connected with a couple of medical food companies who donated a supply of specialty low protein foods and a back-up supply of PKU formula for the patient to help minimize the stress of continued disease management through this crisis. The family was so grateful for the support! None of it would have been possible without Rayna!
In addition, Rayna is a great team player! She works so well with everyone in our department and is not afraid to step up when we need help. We were short-staffed for a few months this year unexpectedly. During this time, everyone stepped up to cover, but Rayna took on a lot of the burden herself as one of the only other nurses in the department. When the extra tasks were brought to her she approached the challenge with an amazingly positive attitude! She commented multiple times about how grateful she was for the opportunity to work with other families and learn about other diseases that our department works with. She could have easily become overwhelmed and over worked, but she saw it as a positive opportunity. Her positive attitude was contagious and helped other support staff get through the stressful time. There have been many other instances where Rayna has gone above and beyond for her patients and coworkers; these are just a couple of examples. Rayna is a blessing to our department and to our patients! She is a great nurse, but an even better person! We have all greatly enjoyed working with her!