I have had the pleasure of working under the leadership of Tara Jamieson during her multiple role changes on 6 Monti. When thinking of Tara, the words that come to mind include: compassionate, driven, dedicated, leader, respectful, trustworthy.
Tara started and has excelled in her career as a Registered Nurse and working for Northwell Health on the same unit for the past 9 years. She has seen this unit through the transition and growth of our kidney transplant program and recently the start of our liver transplant program.
No challenge is ever too much for Tara to tackle and handle effortlessly. She had the opportunity last year to interview for the role of Nurse Manager of 6 Monti while being pregnant with her daughter. This role change also occurred during the changes being made on 6 Monti for our liver transplant program to start.
Being in this new role of manager and mom, Tara continues to prove she is unstoppable. She has always and continues to be the best patient advocate as well as an advocate for her staff. She is always looking for ways to better the unit to make it as cohesive and functional as possible. She continuously encourages staff and pushes them so they can see and believe their potential! She is a believer in our CCC and encourages our staff to stay involved to better our unit.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Tara was thrown through multiple challenges of closing our unit twice, moving to run a different unit, and finally managing an ICU on 6 Monti. Despite all these changes, she never once made the staff feel alone or forgotten. She was always in contact with us updating us at the huddle, through emails, and our own GroupMe chat. Tara encouraged us to come to her if we needed to talk and made sure we felt supported. Even with our home of 6 Monti being closed and staff floating out to different units each shift, she would make sure to reach out and visit the staff, so they knew they weren't alone!
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During times of crisis and confusion, true leaders step up and that is exactly what Tara did. Over the past few months and as a fairly new Nurse Manager, Tara has been faced with numerous obstacles during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Her unit 6 Monti transitioned to become a medicine COVID unit. Tara eased the fears of her staff by increasing communication and creating a COVID GroupMe chat with all employees of the unit. She gave consistent and real-time information to all members of the team.
Tara promotes an open door policy, everyone feels comfortable coming to her for everything no matter what. She encouraged staff to meet with her and she eased their anxiety. As her ANM I was moved up the hill to work at Stern Rehab; not only did she check on me regularly but she also sent me flowers to cheer me up because I missed my unit so much. Tara is always thoughtful like that, she will do anything for her staff. When the unit was moved to 4 Katz, she made sure her entire team remained intact and ran that unit as if it were her own. When 6 Monti was turned into an ICU she not only embraced the change, but she made sure the 6 Monti staff were an asset to the ICU nurses.
Tara created roles for each 6 Monti nurses. She would troubleshoot all of the issues of the ICU nurses and with no prior ICU experience ran a functioning COVID ICU. Tara's leadership ensured that the 6 Monti staff felt safe and comfortable during a challenging time. She welcomed ICU travel nurses and they instantly felt like part of the team. When they were moved off the unit, they even chose to take their breaks on 6 Monti just to be around the team. The culture that she has created on 6 Monti is warm, welcoming, and focused on teamwork. Because of Tara, 6 Monti is the best unit at North Shore, not only does the staff feel the energy up here but so do the patients. They all become part of our family.