Katherine Phillips
April 2021
Katherine
Phillips
,
RN
Baptist Hospital Emergency Department
Baptist Health Care
Pensacola
,
FL
United States
Kat models empathy and expresses kindness to patients who are experiencing a life-changing event.
There is not just one story about Kat. Since Kat’s transfer in 2017, she has become an ED charge nurse. During Kat’s time in the ED,, she has taken on improving quality care for our patients that have been sexually assaulted.
This is a very traumatic experience for anyone, and as a nurse performing this exam on a patient, it is also very difficult. On her own time, Kat went and took a 40-hour sexual assault class, reached out for resources for victims of sexual assault, and developed a cart in the ED for these types of patients. She also rallied with her team in the ED to make a special kit for these patients (that included clean underclothes, toiletries, resources for traumatic experiences), has educated our ED team about sexual assault exams, and developed a binder to keep handouts for patients about their visit.
There are many other things that go into this process that Kat has done, on her own, to help improve our quality of care for these patients. Kat has done many of these exams, each one taking 4-6 hours to complete. Sitting and talking with the patient explaining the process to document every detail asking the patient to relive their traumatic experience again. She shows patience and understanding with these patients. She has even had to go to court multiple times to testify for these cases.
Kat models empathy and expresses kindness to patients who are experiencing a life-changing event. She demonstrates extraordinary clinical skills while also delivering passionate patient care, stays positive to help promote hope to patients that are experiencing one of the darkest days in their life, and she radiates Baptist Health Care’s mission, “Helping people throughout life’s journey.” Kat represents this every day and truly shines by helping someone find hope in probably the worst day of their lives.
It is not just one patient or one situation that Kat has made a difference in someone's life but multiple. By her taking on this project she has helped our quality of care improvement for patients of sexual assault.
This is a very traumatic experience for anyone, and as a nurse performing this exam on a patient, it is also very difficult. On her own time, Kat went and took a 40-hour sexual assault class, reached out for resources for victims of sexual assault, and developed a cart in the ED for these types of patients. She also rallied with her team in the ED to make a special kit for these patients (that included clean underclothes, toiletries, resources for traumatic experiences), has educated our ED team about sexual assault exams, and developed a binder to keep handouts for patients about their visit.
There are many other things that go into this process that Kat has done, on her own, to help improve our quality of care for these patients. Kat has done many of these exams, each one taking 4-6 hours to complete. Sitting and talking with the patient explaining the process to document every detail asking the patient to relive their traumatic experience again. She shows patience and understanding with these patients. She has even had to go to court multiple times to testify for these cases.
Kat models empathy and expresses kindness to patients who are experiencing a life-changing event. She demonstrates extraordinary clinical skills while also delivering passionate patient care, stays positive to help promote hope to patients that are experiencing one of the darkest days in their life, and she radiates Baptist Health Care’s mission, “Helping people throughout life’s journey.” Kat represents this every day and truly shines by helping someone find hope in probably the worst day of their lives.
It is not just one patient or one situation that Kat has made a difference in someone's life but multiple. By her taking on this project she has helped our quality of care improvement for patients of sexual assault.