Summer is the sole pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist for UC San Diego Health. She provides expertise for the care of pediatric patients across the entire system from clinics to outpatient procedures to inpatient admissions. Her work ensures that pediatric patients are cared for using the highest standard of care and in the safest way possible. She thinks of details for this patient population that many of us can't appreciate need to be addressed.

Over her years in the organization, Summer worked with physician nursing and administrative leadership to create a process for reviewing and approving all scheduled pediatric admissions. (There is a surprising number of pediatric patients that come to UC San Diego because of specialized care that can be provided here but not at Rady Children's). This process has worked well and allowed for team members, patients, and families to all be prepared for the admission and for things to run smoothly. In late October this process didn't quite work as planned. A 13-year-old patient at Rady's needed a specialized orthopedic surgery that required admission to UC San Diego. Somehow all the arrangements were made to transfer the patient here by ambulance and admit them to the Burn ICU. While the Burn unit is trained to care for pediatric patients, they were not prepared for the patient to arrive and for the primary problem to be an orthopedic surgery. Summer was notified almost immediately and jumped into action. She helped to make sure that the patient and the unit had what they needed for this patient and tried to sort out where the gap in communication occurred.

As the plan of care became clear, Summer arranged her schedule so that she could be present at the Medical Center leading up to the patient's surgery, recovery, and admission post-op. She dedicated many hours to ensuring this patient's safety and addressing any needs of the team members involved in the care. She remained here until very late at night and was instrumental in the process being very smooth.

Her efforts were also recognized by the Chief Medical Officer: Summer, I wanted to let you know that you were recognized at tier 5 today for your extraordinary efforts on behalf of our 13-year-old patient. I know you have been staying late to make sure things went smoothly and you have our gratitude for your hard work and attention to detail on behalf of all our pediatric patients! Summer is an excellent example of compassion and caring. She is dedicated to the wellbeing of pediatric patients and makes a difference every day in their lives with this patient being just one example.