Vikki exemplifies every quality a DAISY Nurse should have. She is caring, professional, a team player, a patient advocate, and utilizes critical thinking skills when needed. She is organized and always arrives early before her shift. She is dependable and makes herself present during any emergent situation on the floor that may occur during the shift. She connects with patients on a personal level and patients often request her to be their nurse.One day she brought some crafts for one of her patients who was experiencing hospital boredom. She even goes as far as making holiday pens for the staff during her spare time. I would like to share one of the most moving moments of my 6-year nursing career:
Vikki recognized that one of her patients was not acting right. The patient's vitals were stable and he aroused to stimuli, but she followed her gut and called the doctor. The doctor did not order anything and said he would be rounding soon. A few hours passed and the doctor had still not come up to the floor. She contacted him again and he came to see the patient a few minutes later. He ordered some labs, chest x-ray and CT of the head. The CT results were called to Vikki right before shift change and showed patient had a stroke that occurred 12 hours before CT. Vikki had conducted mend exams on the patient, but they were hard to do because of the patients mental status (confusion was his baseline). Vikki called the patient's daughter to give her an update and the family informed her that the patient was a DNR. According to the chart the patient was still a full code. Vikki urged the oncoming nurse to work on changing the code status because the patient was slowly declining. The next morning at shift change the patient coded. The code status had not been changed because the physician during the night felt like it could wait until the next day. Vikki stayed with the patient during the code and I called the physician and daughter. I along with another nurse and the physician got telephone consent from the daughter to change the patient's status to a DNR. I urged the daughter to come as soon as she could. We would bag him until she came. She just wanted us to let him pass, but keep him comfortable. Vikki stayed with the patient until the daughter came. His heart rate increased and his condition stabilized. I assumed care of her patients, so she could be with him. She stayed right beside him and held his hand and sang to him. When the daughter came she was very thankful that Vikki stayed with him. Vikki called the physician and obtained an order for palliative care to come see the patient. The patient was connected to a PCA pump and the Chaplain was called. The patient passed away a few hours later with his daughter, Vikki and me at his side. Vikki asked the daughter what her father liked. She said baseball. Vikki started singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and at the end she said his name "is up to bat and he hits a home run!" He passed right then and there. It was so touching. We looked up at the TV and the Atlanta Braves were playing and that happened to be his favorite team. Vikki stayed with the daughter as she mourned her father's passing while I contacted TDS. Later in the day after the daughter had left a TDS representative called to send a message to us from the daughter. The daughter wanted to say thank you again to Vikki and that she would never forget the compassionate care that Vikki gave to both her father and her. I am so blessed to have Vikki as a team member. She made such a strong impact on me and so many other people that day. She deserves the DAISY Award for not only this, but for her compassionate care she provides on a daily basis to her patients.
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Vikki involves herself in and utterly solves a very critical matter. She is one of the best nurses I have ever encountered. I trust this woman with my life and believe me you can count on her.
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Vikki works hard to keep patients comfortable. She keeps family informed about medications and treatment and is always friendly and caring. She's the most compassionate nurse I have had the pleasure of meeting. Vikki took great care of my wife and I cannot say enough good things about her.
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Nurse Vikki took extreme interest in every facet of my care. She lifted my spirits through her caring and compassion. She made sure that I got an exercise bike. She made me feel better by telling me she had three children and shared her personal comments about herself and her family that helped me feel less lonely. She was even interested in my fiance. She helped me get ready when I was having visitors. She personally brought me toiletries. I could not have been treated any better.