...I took over a patient from Ashley that I had given her the morning before. In her update report she noted that the patient had been pleasant and fine all day requiring little to no pain medication or interventions of any kind. Suddenly the patient began to complain of severe RUQ pain with referred pain in the pelvic shoulder.

Initially, the patient's pain was written off as "typical", a symptom of her specific injury and an order for additional pain medicine was given. When the additional meds didn't help, she insisted that she felt there was "something wrong" with the patient even though her vital signs and other presentation didn't support her theory. She urged me to look deeper and was persistent with her gut feeling that something wasn't right. I continued to pursue additional intervention and evaluation simply because Ashley was so passionate about it and the patient's severe pain hadn't wavered, turns out a STAT CT was ordered and the patient was found to be bleeding into her abdomen.

Without Ashley's persistence and unwavering care the bleed may not have been diagnosed until much later. She quite possibly saved this patient's life.