Melinda is one of the unsung heroes. She is an integral part of and adored by the patients and respected by her peers. She is always willing to help everyone and maintains a positive and motivated disposition that is inspirational. When at work, her goal is to improve the quality of a patient's life one moment at a time. She goes beyond the extra mile for the patients and her co-workers. As the subject matter expert for pressure injury prevention, she developed the Telehealth wound care program and led our facility to the development of the clinical wound care champion to proactively address the reduction of pressure injury prevention. She leads wound care clinical champions and the wound care nursing team in shared governance providing multiple opportunities for nurses' ideas, voices, and concerns to be addressed, including encouraging front-line staff participation. She is the driving force for creating a continuum of quality leadership, engaging employees, and supporting innovation at VA Central Texas. Her patients experience her compassion and their needs and safety are always placed first. For example, a patient with a leaky ileostomy for years impacted their quality of life, causing weight loss and skin breakdown. The patient reported it took four hours a day to care for their ostomy appliance and bathe, resulting in being home-bound. Melinda worked with our prosthetics department to develop a specialized ostomy appliance that decreased the patient's time to perform activity of daily living, allowed weight gain, and healed skin breakdown. The patient stated their quality of life dramatically improved and allowed them to attend church.

Melinda is a true DAISY Nurse!