Nancy is the RN Coordinator for the Rehabilitation Care services Spine and Musculoskeletal Clinic in Seattle. In the approximately 16 months that she has worked in this position, Nancy has consistently performed well above and beyond the norm to accommodate, and often anticipate, the many needs and requests of the RCS Spine/MSK Clinic providers. She regularly obtains the clinical reports and images of radiology and other studies accomplished at community care facilities, ensures that copies of the reports have been forwarded to the provider, and sends the reports and images to radiology to upload to the Radiology portal. This can quite often require multiple follow-up requests for record requests. She regularly reviews all of the many secure emails in a timely manner, forwards them to the respective provider, and, although she is not expected to, will respond to the emails herself as well as initiate the process of scheduling follow-up appointments for patients when appropriate. Despite her many other duties and responsibilities, she consistently performs her tasks with alacrity and professionalism, as related to me by my patients and from my own interactions with Nancy. Since I am performing off-site telehealth patient consults, Nancy has been an outstanding liaison and a consistent advocate for our patients. 

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Nancy is exceptional. Since she joined the team, I have been impressed with her attention to detail, high level of decision-making, work ethic, and easy-to-get-along-with personality. As the director of the musculoskeletal and spine clinic for RCS, I rely on Nancy to keep our ship stable. She has never let me down and consistently surprises me with the quality of work she provides.

Nancy represents INTEGRITY in every way possible. I perform high-level spine procedures to our veterans. I rely on Nancy to help turn over our ORs and assist during the procedures. I have found Nancy to be trustworthy, often letting me know safety concerns that I wouldn't expect a person as new as she is to spine care to recognize. Nancy is COMMITTED to veteran care. She consistently goes the extra mile to make sure our veterans receive the best care, often taking on roles beyond what a nursing degree would teach. For example, I see her often playing "special worker," helping veterans navigate our complex systems to obtain transportation, home devices, and other important tools for their care and safety. As a veteran herself, I can always count on Nancy to be an ADVOCATE to provide our veterans with the best access to care. And Veterans love Nancy. Her organization and people skills help veterans get scheduled for all the various injections offered. Everyone who has worked with her has commented on and recognized her RESPECT for staff and patients.

Speaking more on Nancy's commitment to a high level of care, we added platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections to the clinic in the past year. This requires a nurse to help with the blood draw and to process the PRP. This literally would not have been possible without a high-quality nurse like Nancy. She has even trained a few nurses as "backups" in case she is gone for a PRP day. In this way, we have been able to offer a high level of care to our veteran population suffering from chronic pain. 

Overall, I feel like my narrative is inadequate to fully explain why Nancy is so great. She is the prototype of a nurse who can demonstrate EXCELLENCE.  I hope she gets the recognition she deserves.