I would like to thank my nurse and share my story of why this nurse is so special. I have worked with Sonia in the infectious disease clinic now almost 6 years. Starting from our time in the basement of the medical center, our transition to the MSC, Sonia has epitomized the ideal LVN anyone would want working and running a clinic. She essentially is the "glue" that holds the infectious disease clinic together; without her energy, passion, and dedication, our clinic would not be able to function or care for our patients. 

Sonia works well with her colleagues, collaborating and coordinating care to organize our clinic in an efficient and productive manner. She has demonstrated without a doubt that she can balance stressful situations and on-the-fly changes to patient and treatment plans. There are always issues that comes up pre/during/post-clinic, and it always amazes us how adaptable Sonia always is with dealing with the unexpected emergencies. 

One of the most, if not most, important things we need to highlight about Sonia is her dedication to patient care. I have witnessed time and time again over the years how much she cares for the patients coming to not only our clinic, but any of the clinics. For example, she has personally taken the time to repeatedly call patients when they don't show up (especially many of our more vulnerable patients) to do what she can in order to ensure they have appropriate follow up, or at least a plan to follow up. 

Another impressive strength of Sonia's is her active preparedness for clinic visits. She always has her list set for patients with insurance/laboratory access. This is incredibly useful for all the students/residents we have in clinics. Many times, she makes necessary adjustments to lab orders (i.e., I probably placed the order to the wrong lab) so that that patient has appropriately designated labs, which improves the clinic pacing so that discharges are not held up due to needing to cancel and then reorder all the labs again that were just placed by a physician. 

Sonia is critical to the infectious disease clinic in that she fully understands and comprehends our unique lab testing for our patient populations. There are multiple times when she'll run a patient's order after we have finished an encounter, double checking to ensure we don't need to reorder say a CD4 count, or a repeat Coccididioidomycosis, complement fixation titer. These little nuances in her workflow only serve to further improve patient care here. I'm sure this is similar workflow in other clinics, but I want to highlight how proactive Sonia is regarding calling patients for reminders prior to clinic visits (or if patients can not follow up, to reschedule them). Many of our patients are on time-sensitive therapy and need to return to treatment in a specific time frame. She is ever vigilant to ensure these patients have all the opportunity to return on time for their treatment, or in not able, then to promptly reach out to providers/pharmacy to help determine a contingency plan.

Lastly, I want to highlight one of Sonia's most important characteristics, which is her wonderful attitude. She always comes to clinic, ready to lead with a smile, full of energy and to support our team and patients. I have seen her multiple times needing to come to work sick/ill, but still carry the same positive attitude despite her clearly feeling unwell. 

When we have a last-minute emergency/schedule change on the physician's side, she takes this all in stride and adjusts things accordingly. When the last patient needs to be transferred to the ED due to how ill they present, she ensures that the patient is taken care of appropriately. She often is one of the last, if not the last, individuals to leave work many times. There will be times where I send her a secure chat in the evening, not expecting her to respond, and still she responds with timely helpful advice. 

Thank you, Sonia, for everything you do for our clinic.