Susan floated to 3Tower for a 12 hour shift. Her attitude from the beginning was like none I have seen before. She was very helpful, happy and caring towards all patients. She was the first to jump up to answer bed alarms, call lights or lend a helping hand to all staff. There were two of my patients that she had previously taken care of on her floor and took the time to visit with each patient and family even with her busy assignment.
One patient is in palliative and declining, she went in and offered her condolences to the family and spent time with them talking and reassuring them that their family member was getting the best care possible; this interaction meant more than she knew to the family.
The second patient is one she took care of for 3 weeks on her floor and developed a very close relationship with. Our staff had a hard time getting him to communicate on a personal level or getting him to eat. At dinner time I go in the patient's room to find Susan sitting at his bedside feeding the patient his dinner as he is unable to feed himself. She was joking with him, making him laugh and continued to reassure him that he would be taken care of. Although she had her own patients to care for she took the time to make this patient laugh and actually eat his dinner.