As a new nurse within the past two years, she has demonstrated significant personal and professional growth. This has propelled her into a leadership role as a nightshift charge nurse. Her willingness to help co-workers and to work with the AODs, regardless of the situation or what she is asked to do, demonstrates these leadership qualities. She is a role model for the new nurses coming into the unit as well as her current co-workers.

I would also like to tell you a story of how dedicated she is to tender loving old-fashioned patient care. There is a patient on her floor who has been there for well over a month at the time I am writing this letter. He is a young man who suffers from significant medical and mental health issues. These issues have taken him into very dark places in his mind and physical being. I have watched her over the weeks devote literally hours and hours of time working with him in a multitude of therapeutic ways. She has stood quietly in the room encouraging him to share his thoughts and feelings with her, to listen to him have outbursts of emotional torment, and to reason with him in an attempt to help him through episodes of confusion and frustration. At times she just sat quietly by his bedside and held his hand in an attempt to make him feel safe. When his frustrations would boil over I never heard her speak harshly to him or with frustration in her voice. The times I did hear frustration in her voice was to me when she felt she was not able to help him and that we as a medical community were not doing enough for him. As a leader in her unit, she helped the other nurses work through problems they were having with him and offered suggestions of ways to deal with him that had worked for her.

As a charge nurse sometimes you get caught up in what is going on around you with the staff and other patient situations. There are expectations and jobs in that role that take your time and attention along with handling your own patient assignment. At times it can be frustrating and can lead to feelings of inadequacy about not being able to do the best job possible. When she first started, like many other new nurses, I listened to her share her feelings of not being able to do a good job or even be a nurse. However here she is. She made it through all of that and is now a leader in the unit. For these reasons I feel she demonstrates the qualities necessary as a nurse leader, to promote an environment of compassion and mutual respect with her co-worker and trust and compassion for the patients on her unit during her shift. I feel she should be recognized for her role in striving to deliver quality patient care.