Brigid is a valued member of both Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and the HOT Services team. She has a positive attitude, a warm personality and the ability to always make a patient smile. She is caring, compassionate, hard working, energetic and gives her all when she comes to work. Brigid demonstrates such enthusiasm for her patients and brings the biggest smile and the most contagious laugh into the room with her. Her wealth of knowledge and experience is impressive and she serves as a phenomenal resource for our unit. Her professionalism, skill, and respect for others is supreme.

Brigid is an exemplary nurse. She likes to care for teenagers, a unique patient population that presents its own challenges. Brigid takes these kids and makes them her own in such a way that it is hard to put into words. She is able to build trusting relationships during very trying times. This past year Brigid cared for a complex, long term Bone Marrow Transplant patient, often critically ill, with a difficult prognosis. She spent numerous shifts providing one on one nursing care, not even being able to get out of the room for periods of time. She ensured every day that he got what he needed both medically and emotionally. Brigid was a rock for that patient and family when they needed it most. When the patient's condition deteriorated, it was Brigid who truly advocated to get the patient transferred to the Intensive Care Unit so that he could get the pain control he desperately needed. This is just one example of Brigid's compassionate care, but it happens every time she cares for a patient, no matter how simple or complex. She is so extraordinary in the way she is able to care for these patients with all of her heart and yet not let personal and professional boundaries get crossed.

Brigid is also an incredibly strong and valuable preceptor on the unit. She consistently inspires nurses to be at their best when working with our population. She is invested in precepting and the orientation process and works incredibly hard to ensure that her orientees get a well-rounded experience. She readily provides feedback to the leadership team about her orientees, while continuing to work closely with them to ensure the patients are receiving safe, quality care. If an orientee needs to transition to a different shift to complete their orientation, Brigid ensures a handoff occurs between her and the new preceptor, which then allows her orientee a seamless transition for their continued learning. Brigid also is a great resource for seasoned nurses, always offering help when needed and being someone that any nurse can seek out for opinions/advice when questions arise.

Brigid has signed up to be a primary and consistent nurse for multiple patients throughout the years. She not only works well with challenging patients and families, but she also thrives in difficult patient situations. Whether those challenges be related to disease and treatment, psychosocial stability, or developmental ability, Brigid continues to treat everyone as if they are the most important person at Children's. She has given outstanding care to anyone who has crossed her path. She exhibits compassion in every single one of her interactions. Brigid recognizes how to be a collaborative partner in making a plan of care for her patient. She verbalizes in daily rounds when she does not feel that a patient will comply with provider recommendations or orders because of how well she knows her patients and how open and honest they are with her. Patients trust her as their advocate. She helps her patient and the providers develop a supportive care plan that is medically appropriate and likely to be followed by the patient because of her pragmatic approach and knowledge of the patient beyond what is captured in Epic. Brigid protects her patients integrity and helps each to be a vital member of their own care team.The providers, nurses, and ancillary staff have a level of respect for Brigid that is unparalleled. When she speaks, people listen. She understands the pathophysiology of multiple forms of cancer and eloquently communicates with her colleagues; the combination of these two assets allows her to be successful in collaborating with a multidisciplinary team.

She consistently uses her critical thinking skills to process what is going on with her patient and uses her sound communication skills to advocate for her patient. She is capably able to pick up on subtle cues from patients and identify when their vitals and clinical pictures are changing. In addition to these easily documented and more obvious cues, Brigid also can rely on her intuition and just a sense of when something is not quite right with her patients. She reacts quickly and confidently when her patient's status changes.

Brigid is a beloved nurse within Services. Providers, nurses, patients, and families are just a few groups of people who think the world of her. She works well with individuals in all behavioral quadrants and does not allow her quadrant liabilities to hold her back. Brigid gives her all everyday, invests a lot of time while providing nursing care and often goes above and beyond for her patients and families. Her work ethic, caring and compassionate nature, level of scholarship, and overall character is admirable. She is the epitome of an extraordinary DAISY nurse.