Sarah not only demonstrates compassion to her assigned patients, but also to every patient on the floor as well as her co-workers. She shows sympathy and great concern for others. Patients in her care know she is genuine in her compassion for them. Sarah shows integrity by her day to day actions. She is always willing to help her fellow co-workers, e.g. a bed bath, taking patients to the restroom, admitting new patients, or anything that needs to be done. She takes pride in being approachable to all staff and patients for help. She gives respect to all. She respects the opinion of her patients even when others may not understand their health concerns and how they want to be clinically treated.
For example, Sarah had a patient that had cancer with a bad prognosis. This patient was unable to speak and did not open his eyes. When she was caring for this patient she made sure she spoke to him and explained everything she was doing to him regarding his plan of care. Sarah also made sure to include his daughter. She took the time out to educate the daughter and help her understand what to expect.
Collaboration is Sarah; she is a great team player. The nurses know they can always count on her if they ever need help. She will stop what she is doing in order to help others. Sarah has an understanding relationship with the doctors on the unit. Upon assessment of the patient mentioned above, she noticed his arms were very swollen and his lungs sounded wet. An order for continuous fluids was ordered. Sarah was so worried about the patient being fluid volume overloaded that she immediately paged the doctor to see if the fluids could be stopped. The doctor thanked her for her observation and discontinued the fluids.
Sarah is truly a leader on our unit; she remains professional and calm during stressful times. Others look up to her. If there is any issue on the unit, she is the first one to step up and go to bat for either the floor or the patients. Sarah demonstrates excellence with providing high standards for patient care. The patients just love her upbeat attitude and big smile. She makes sure all her patients' needs and wants are met. She is known for going down stairs to get food for her patients that have been NPO all day and then the orders changed late in the day.
Sarah shows understanding of collaborating with the Parkland multidisciplinary health care team when caring for our special patient-population. Not all patients have families or even a place to lay their heads down at night when they are being discharged. Sarah works extra hard with the other teams to make sure the patients are safe when they leave her care. She takes the extra step to ensure the patient can afford their discharge medications by calling the discharge pharmacy to see what co-pay is needed and then she makes sure the patient has the means to pay.
Sarah is deserving of a DAISY award because anyone she comes in contact with can attest to that. She comes to work every shift with the attitude that she is here to help others and hopefully be able to touch the life of another human being. She does simple nursing tasks with such compassion and caring. She is an inspiration to not only me, but all her co-workers.