Last month, we had a chronically ill child, whose parents agreed to extubate to allow her to die peacefully. As caring as the parents were, they did not wish to be present for the extubation, nor to witness her death, it was beyond their capacity. We proceeded to extubate her and she survived for about ten hours. During that time, Samantha Vu was her primary nurse. She sat at the child's bedside, held her hand, spoke gently/kindly to her, sang to her, and prayed for her. I cannot find the words to express how valuable, how important these actions were. Not only did Samantha provide excellent care to this patient, she also showed compassion that can only come from true empathy for the patient. In addition, Samantha encouraged other nurses and RTs to do the same, if they wanted to. In this way, to my point of view, she acted as a true leader. Thankfully, there are many, many wonderful people at CHOC who truly care about the children who are our patients. It's part of what makes me come to work with a smile on my face every day. But Samantha's actions are above and beyond what I have witnessed at CHOC, having been here since 1998. I will try to follow her example, and I hope others will too.