Susan Williamson has been a nurse for 38 years, much of that in Oncology. She has worked in leadership roles such as charge nurse, unit educator, and unit manager. Susan has all the credentials to be in leadership, but the most important credentials are not just the titles behind her name. Susan has an open-door policy; she welcomes her employees to talk to her about anything. She welcomes open ideas from new project initiatives to critiques about current ones we are working on. She celebrates the accomplishments of her team. She has a "you ask, we listen board", to show the team she values our opinions. She is innovative in the ideas for interviewing new team members and asks for current team members to sit in on interviews. I have seen Susan mentoring our leadership team to be the best support to her staff, by offering ideas to improve care and make the staff feel well supported. During our MDI rounds, she cheers the team on for doing a great job and asking if anyone needs support with baths or ambulation. During her leadership rounds I have seen Susan do many things as a role model with consistency; such as taking out completed food trays, refilling ice water, cleaning the patients' rooms to look less cluttered, removing extra chairs, helping patients to the bathroom, offering to give pain medication if the bedside nurse was busy, checking chemotherapy, witnessing insulin and I can keep going on of all the supportive things I see Sue do. She is creative with the promotion of teamwork and the team doesn't feel alone with her mentorship. She promotes certification and furthering education, also with lunch/learns offered to the team regarding some topics as oncology/pain/end of life.
To help with the stress of the busy emotionally straining Oncology unit, Susan promotes several things to help with morale. She has a recliner chair in our breakroom, always contributes to potlucks thrown on holidays, holds collaborative nurse's week events, holiday parties, and picnics. She sets up massages for the team through the Smile program. She has a shout outboard to praise colleagues for doing a great job, a birthday board, and a team member of the month board. At quality sharing day this year, I could see her thinking about how she could bring anything valuable back to the team. She is chair to the Oncology Collaborative which is an initiative to streamline clinical standards across BayCare, which has made it possible for camaraderie with other BayCare Oncology units.
To me, a boss is someone that you work for. Susan is not a boss, she is a Leader: Experienced Mentor, Listener, Role Model, Expert Communicator, Thought Provoker, Respectful, Colleague, who we all get to work alongside, and while yes, she is our unit manager you can see she is more than that. Susan is a true DAISY Nurse Leader.