Over the past two years, Doug has been the primary RN assigned to care for pediatric patients having general anesthesia (GA) for diagnostic studies. He works tirelessly with nursing and radiology leadership to improve the care we provide for pediatric patients. Doug connects with the patents and their family members with a focus on their state of being involving Child Life specialists and our anesthesia providers to ensure their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs are met.
He strives to break down barriers with our anesthesia peers as well as the Children's Surgery Center (CSC) staff to improve throughput and patient satisfaction. He consistently is looking for ways to improve practices and promote excellent patient care. He has received many compliments from families identifying how he helped their child and always had their child's best interest at heart.
Doug makes an impact on the entire department. The MRI supervisor emailed me recently to say that Doug represents the core values of UC Davis Health in an exceptional manner. His attention to detail, compassionate care for patients, and safety are unmatched. Doug exemplifies a culture of a personal approach, feedback, teamwork, and professionalism. When I see that Doug is assigned to a case, I am confident that the patient will receive the best care possible, team members can concentrate on their tasks and the collective environment will remain productive.
Doug goes above and beyond for every child he cares for. The following is one of many examples where he intervened to ensure a child's needs were met. Recently, I received a call from Doug concerned that an anesthesia provider wanted to reschedule a child's appointment from 07:00 am until the last case of the day. He had spoken with the child's mother who was very tearful and upset about how this delay would impact her daughter. Her daughter is autistic and has other health issues, she requires MRIs every 3 months. MRI's are always scheduled early due to her severe behavior problems and being nonverbal. The Oncologist called the afternoon prior to telling the mom that the MRI had been changed to the afternoon because she hadn't had a COVID test.
Doug was aware of the child's medical and emotional needs and advocated to see what could be done to prevent rescheduling. Doug collaborated withPatient Care Services Executive Director Carla Martin, perioperative services, and PO&M to ensure appropriate equipment was available and the child was able to keep their original appointment. Carla met the child's mother the following day and she wanted Carla to know how wonderful Doug was and that he was their hero.