I have had the privilege of working with Sandra since I came to the ICU nearly 4 years ago. She was welcoming and kind from the start. She has always been a resource for knowledge and assistance no matter how busy she gets or how many directions she is being pulled. Any nurse in this unit will tell you they breathe a sigh of relief when they walk in and see Sandra is the charge nurse. She embodies the skill, knowledge, grace, and compassion that defines nursing and always puts patients first. She is not only admired by the nursing staff but equally so by physicians who ask for her by name when needing assistance.
We had a patient that had been here for months, mostly bedbound and depressed. With a lot of work from multiple departments, she had improved enough to transfer to rehab. She was finally in good spirits and looking forward to working back to her baseline. Her only disappointment was that due to being in bed so long, despite our attempts to manage it, her hair had become a knotted, matted mess. She wanted someone to take scissors to it and chop it off. Sandra thought better of it and called her mom, a hairdresser. We were in a time crunch because the patient was leaving that afternoon, so she asked her mother to come on her lunch break. She came in, free of charge, and gave the patient a complete haircut. The patient loved it so much she requested we take photos she could send her family. One of those photos is hanging in our lounge. Sandra's act of kindness made that patient's day as well as the staff's day.