Patrick Barnes's family started the DAISY Award to recognize extraordinary nurses who are gifted in providing compassionate care. This nurse not only provides great clinical care, but she is the whole package, including exceptional bedside customer service. Most importantly, she does this with compassion and kindness that inspires her patients and family members. She does this consistently. She gives her heart to every patient.

Emily Pascua should be recognized for what some might consider the “extras” in nursing. Emily does not consider anything she does for her patients to be extra or over and above what is required. This type of care is part of her being and her baseline for caring for patients like they are a family member or loved one of her personally.

Emily provides skillful critical care but also has a gift for not accepting things as they are at the present. She has the foresight to look into what would advance the patient’s care or help them improve. She does not have a problem advocating for orders or interventions and seeks these out with the goal of progression of care.

Emily’s other gifts are kindness and sweetness. It would be a challenge for me to think of any patient or family member who has encountered her and not walked away feeling well cared for in the ICU. She makes patients feel seen and heard. Again, I repeat, she really makes the patients feel seen and heard in a very busy environment where this can easily be missed due to tasks and critical timelines.

I have watched Emily for years and continue to be impressed. Recently, Emily had a complicated patient, and I immediately thought she should be awarded the DAISY Award for her compassion.

This patient was a young 18-year-old girl. She had been in a motor vehicle accident, been through multiple surgeries, and been in the hospital for a long time. The patient was basically a quadriplegic, requiring full care for everything. By the time Emily took care of her, the patient’s anxiety was causing her to use her call bell very frequently. To make things even more challenging for the nurse, this patient was in contact isolation, requiring donning and doffing of isolation materials. This was the type of assignment that I noticed RNs were requesting to only have for one shift because of the workload.

So, I will start with that…Emily was assigned to this patient and did not request a break. She returned on her consecutive shifts and took the patient without complaint feeling it would benefit the patient. Emily was in the room with this teenager most of the day while still juggling another patient. These are a few of the things that others might see as extras, but Emily did not:

- She sought out the Infectious Disease nurse and asked what it would take for the patient to come out of isolation since the source was a wound that had been healed. She started the process of swabbing the patient with the plan to have the patient swabbed again in a week. She knew that the isolation was a barrier to more people coming into this patient's room, making the patient feel more isolated.

-    She had a frank discussion with the patient about the use of Dilaudid and how she will eventually need to transition to other medications. Emily got orders for longer-acting narcotics and devised a plan for the patient to try them while reassuring her she would address her pain if they did not work. Emily earned her trust, and the patient tried longer-acting medications and immediately started using fewer narcotics.

-    She obtained a device for the girl to watch videos on and made sure it was set up so she could use the device. She made recommendations for her to watch and engage with her on her level.

-    Emily then decided the patient should go outside since she had been in the hospital for so long. So if you are not an ICU RN you may not realize the time, strength and coordination it would require because this is no simple task. It likely took a few hours. She had to get a cardiac chair in the room and then get help transferring the patient safely who needed full assistance. She had to manage the monitors and an EVD safely. Not to mention managing a very scared and anxious teenage girl. She got her to the lanai, where she could feel fresh air on her face and see and smell the outside for the first time in months. And of course, Emily then stayed with her while trying to squeeze in some charting.

Emily gave her 110% that day, and it made a world of difference. The smile on the patient’s face when she was outside was priceless. And that was just day one for Emily. She returned for her second day with this patient and did it all over again. She told the patient she would be off for a few days after that shift and then asked her if she would like a “spa day” when she came back to work. If you know Emily, she is a beautiful, glamorous girl, and she made this young female teenager feel the same. She provided her hope and something to look forward to in the next few days. She makes this patient feel seen, heard, and valued.

My words do not do justice to the type of care she provides on a daily basis. She is one of the most genuinely compassionate and caring nurses.