Virginia “Gee” Culla, RN III, was recently honored with the prestigious DAISY Award during a surprise ceremony at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Expecting a meeting in the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU) break room, she instead received hugs and congratulations from her team.
“I’m very surprised,” Culla said. “I had no idea. I love working in my unit. It means working with people who like to improve the lives of patients every day. I’m so thankful.”
Since 1997, she has been working as a nurse in the hospital’s CTICU. “During the past 11 and a half years that I have worked with Gee, I have been nothing but impressed and amazed with the wonderful person and nurse that she is on a daily basis,” her coworker wrote.
She describes Gee as “calm, caring, confident, gentle, quiet, knowledgeable and extremely detail oriented.”
She went on to say, “Whenever I have a really sick kid on the unit, I know that child is best off if assigned to Gee because she will make them better!”