Rhodesia (Daisy) Dizon is truly a role model for compassionate care. This is demonstrated by her warm and caring actions. She always smiles and greets her patients and families, and remembers their names on a day to day basis. Daisy puts the patients and families first and takes the time needed to support their emotional and physical needs. She uses caring gestures such as holding a hand, good eye contact, sitting down beside patients and families to discuss needs, patting the patients on their shoulders when they have completed their radiation treatments. Her focus is on other person's needs and she channels the emotion generated by their predicament into an active response. She sees the patient and family needs as more than just a medical scenario. She seeks to find out the personal lives of others, always showing genuine interest in the total person.
Daisy always seeks to connect to her patients and families, as demonstrated by the following recent note written by our nutritionist: I had gone to see Ms L an elderly gynecologic patient of Dr. Damast ~2 weeks ago. In addition to her cancer diagnosis and treatment, the patient is suffering from Alzheimer's and although chemo was held, the patient ultimately decided to go forward and continue with pelvic RT. Ms L has had extreme weight loss from refusing to eat. As you know sometimes we end up caring for a patient's family as well. Ms L's daughter has been diligent in caring for the patient however unfortunately she has been very tearful about her mother's condition for some time requiring much TLC from staff, with extensive SW assistance. One day after my nutrition f/u, Ms L was taken back to treatment, leaving her daughter quite distraught in an exam room (finishing an entire packet of tissues). I was so happy to have Daisy, RN with me in the room helping to console Ms L's daughter who had also lost her father to cancer recently. I was deeply impressed with the length of time, empathy and support Daisy provided. She truly went above and beyond her call of duty. The patient's daughter was being quite hard on herself about her decision encourage her mother to go through treatment despite the patient's age and mental health. Daisy played devil's advocate by asking the daughter to consider how she would feel if she didn't pursue treatment helping to assuage her guilt. I wish I had a camera to showcase the level of connection and compassion the existed between Daisy and this lady. Daisy is just one example of where we go above and beyond in patient care.
Daisy connected well to a very challenging patient, MD. MD had a psych history and was physically and mentally abused as a child, which crippled her. She refused to go for radiation therapy treatments for cancer. She had fired other MDs in the past and had gone through 3 different oncologists over the past year. She was very resistant to any medical treatment and felt that she could not go through treatment due to her high level of anxiety. Daisy and MD's medical Oncologist took the time to meet with MD, which ended up taking over 3 hours. Daisy got MD through simulation and her initial consult, and was able to coach her every day for her daily treatments over a month. Daisy would stay by MD's side every day and take as long as needed to calm her down. MD responded very well to Daisy's support, lighting up every time she saw her. This relaxed her enough to go through each day of treatment. Daisy took the time to hand MD off to other nurses and radiation therapists as needed to keep her anxiety at bay. MD successfully completed her month of radiation therapy. This would not have happened if it weren't for Daisy's patience and emotional support.
Daisy has been a new integral member of the nursing radiation-oncology team and has oriented well to our main campus as well as our Hamden off-site. She comes to us with several years of experience as a CTICU nurse. This has been a great asset, as she can readily take action as needed when she assesses our unstable patients. She brings positivity to our team, as she always smiles and stays calm no matter how busy the unit is. She consistently uses a collaborative multidisciplinary approach, seeking out the best care for our patients to attain positive patient outcomes. She is seen by her peers as a role model, as she is always seeking out ways to help her peers as needed when the workload gets busy. She also feels comfortable engaging in crucial conversations with her peers, using tact and supportive words. She never complains, but instead, turns negative situations into positive ones by her can-do attitude. She is truly an "I am YNHH" nurse.