August 2019
Shiena
Valdez
,
RN
SCI Ward T2
VA Long Beach Healthcare System
Long Beach
,
CA
United States
Nurse Shiena demonstrates through her continual leadership, dedication to duty, compassion, and empathy. Her leadership skills are on display regularly when she is filling the role of charge nurse during a shift. Although there are several other staff members operating at a high level, in my humble option, Nurse Shiena sets herself apart on a more sustained consistent basis by stepping in and diffusing potentially volatile situations between patients and staff, or patient to patient. No single task describes her value to the night shift team and the entire patient population of T2. However, one night when I became more than a little agitated about my caregiver assignment, Nurse Shiena stepped in and switched herself into the caregiver role to deescalate the situation. On another occasion when I was assigned a particular caregiver for feeding, who has difficulty understanding how I like my food prepared, she stepped in again and became my assigned feeder. These are just a couple of examples of how she puts herself forward in leadership, compassion, attention to detail and teamwork.