With a long-term prognosis, it's challenging to point to a single specific story of why I feel Giovanni deserves a nomination. It would be unfair to try and encompass what makes Giovanni so great into a single instance (when there have been so many). The reason I feel Giovanni deserves a DAISY Award is because of his consistency of care, empathy, and interest not only in my recovery but in my comfort, both physical and emotional.

Giovanni notices the details, often the small ones that make a big difference. While he does this every day with the routine procedures to the specialty medications, I'll share one story that exemplifies his high quality of care, collaboration, and openness to ideas. At the beginning of my treatment, I struggled to tolerate an antibody treatment that I would need to receive 8 rounds of in total. The typical rate of the infusion would have someone done in 4-6 hours. However, given my intolerance of it, I took about 14 hours over two days to complete the infusion the first two times.

By the third round, Giovanni realized that after I took a medication to stop my reaction I had a higher tolerance each time. Noticing this, he proactively reached out to the doctor to propose that I receive this medication in advance rather than as an emergency intervention. With tremendous care, he then explained his idea to me, and given the level of trust we built over several months I was on board. This new protocol not only sped up my infusion time to about 5 hours, but it also relieved all of the side effects - dramatically improving my quality of life. There are a number of other stories like this of Giovanni making small changes to help in large ways. Some that he does just for me and some that he's implemented across his patients given my feedback. I believe he is exceptional.