Sahyra has been an incredible student throughout her entire nursing school journey, but I was able to personally witness this during her senior year. Sahyra has been impressive in both the didactic and clinical settings. She received immense praise from her capstone preceptor at Children's Mercy who helped me with this nomination. As a student, Sahrya is driven, professional, and helpful.  She went above and beyond as one of our tutors this semester to help students succeed in their OB/Peds course.  

In addition to showing compassion and dedication to her peers at UCM, she has done this many times for her patients and families during her capstone experience in the NICU. One experience in particular stuck out to both me and her preceptor. Sahyra was taking care of an infant with a Spanish-speaking family. The baby had a bradycardia and desaturation episode that caused a lot of distress for the family. For those unfamiliar with normal NICU care - these brady desat events are very common in preterm infants and typically self-resolve with age. The parents had not witnessed this type of event before and were very upset. They were attempting to communicate with both Sahyra and her preceptor. It can take an incredibly long time for an in-person interpreter to arrive at the bedside, so Sahyra was able to converse with this family and allow them to feel heard. It is very easy to take for granted, our ability to easily communicate with healthcare providers. 

I personally cannot imagine how it must feel knowing that you cannot easily communicate with the nurses or healthcare team responsible for taking care of your baby. While she is not a medical translator, she was able to de-escalate the situation by allowing that family to feel heard and understood in their concerns. Sahyra's compassion did not stop there. 

At our midterm capstone meeting, she shared this experience with me and decided that her quality improvement project would center around supporting non-English speaking families in the NICU. The NICU at Children's Mercy has 85 beds. That means 85 families at any given time have their child in the NICU while each nurse is only responsible for one or two of those infants.  It would have been more than enough for Sahyra to just assist her patient's family, but instead, she took it further. Sahyra decided she wanted to make the unit better for all non-English-speaking families. This truly shows her willingness to go above for more than just her own patients. 

The DAISY Award recognizes extraordinary nursing students. Sahyra has been extraordinary academically and clinically, and I am so thankful to have witnessed her growth over the past year. I have no doubt she will continue to change the lives of so many children and families as a pediatric nurse.