Jennifer is a team player, who thinks of others first, and would do anything for anyone. Jennifer gives from the heart and is a wonderful nurse. She epitomizes teamwork and gives 110% to every patient, every time! Jennifer is extremely dedicated to helping others and providing the best patient experience possible. Jennifer may be a novice nurse; however she is a natural when it comes to delivering kind, extraordinary compassionate care. Every day she comes to work with a positive attitude ready and willing to give the best care possible. Jennifer goes above and beyond and gives her entire self to patients and their families in being their advocate.

I would like to share not one but, several stories about Jen that hopefully will inspire all of us who entered the nursing profession for the right reason. Our unit is no different than the rest when it comes to staffing challenges. Jennifer does not let busy shifts distract her from giving compassionate care, she continually seeks opportunities to enhance the patient's experience.

Jen was assigned a patient who was admitted from the ED during the night shift. The physician was paged throughout the night and orders were received and carried out. When Jennifer assumed the care of this patient she had an intuition that something was not right. She acted on her intuition by being proactive in identifying early warning signs of sepsis and was diligent in getting a physician to immediately come in and assess the patient. The physician was reluctant, but Jennifer would not take no for an answer! Effective communication, along with her excellent critical thinking skills influenced the physician to come in and confirm the patient was indeed going into septic shock and had a perforated bowel that required emergent surgery. Jennifer was instrumental in getting this patient to surgery in a timely fashion. Afterwards, the doctor who was the hospitalist assigned to the patient wrote a WOW card to Jen, "thanking her for excellent work on identifying early warning signs of sepsis and taking a lead role in caring for this critical patient". She saved this patients life.

Jennifer consistently receives WOW cards from her patients discharge phone calls and with leader rounding. Patients often comment on how well their experience was because of Jennifer. One patient wrote, "Of special note, was the care we received from Jennifer Martin. Jennifer was especially kind, and compassionate. She answered all our questions, she was attentive, polite, and gave extra special attention not only to me but, to my husband as well. She went overboard by sitting next to me, held my hand, and listened attentively to my fears. I felt as if I was the only patient she had to care for. She put me and my husband at ease. My husband and I could see she was called to be a nurse because of the warmth with which she delivered the care".

Jennifer has been caring for a patient that is newly diagnosed with cancer and a poor prognosis. As we all know this usually entails a lengthy hospitalization. One night when Jennifer was caring for him he mentioned to her that he was having a difficult time remembering dates even though it was written on his whiteboard. He mentioned to Jennifer that he has a planner at home that he usually refers to and without it he felt "out of sorts". Jennifer did not hesitate to jump on this; on her break she went to the gift shop to see if they had a planner. They did not have anything that Jennifer thought would be useful, so after work Jennifer went shopping for a planner. The next evening she sat with this patient and assisted him with writing important information in his new planner. In addition, his son was in Afghanistan completing his tour of duty. We were able to get the son back to the states to see his father. This patient was discharged home only to return shortly after discharge. He was readmitted to 3B our Oncology unit however, requested to be transferred as soon as possible to Jennifer's unit; 1A.

Being a nurse is a challenging role. In the short time she has been a nurse Jennifer has made a great impact on the lives of others, and brings inspiration of purpose and the opportunity to do worthwhile work every day! She is an outstanding role model to all our nurses. We want to personally thank Jennifer for choosing one of the toughest jobs in the world and for making BTMC her home. We appreciate all she does and for making an enormous difference in the lives of many including her team on 1A! Jennifer is an asset to the nursing profession and we are honored to recognize her for all that she does!