This nurse goes above and beyond every day to help with patient wound healing. I have had multiple patients that should have had wound consults but for whatever reasons, they did not when they were assigned to me. I was told in report that the patient has an abdominal fistula and it is leaking all over, just keep putting abdominal pads to absorb. After looking at the wound, I knew there had to be a better way to manage this; the patient was embarrassed and self-conscious about the situation. I called this nurse without any consultation ordered and explained the situation. The nurse immediately responded, “I will be right there!” The nurse came to the patient’s room, assessed the situation, gathered the appropriate supplies, and rectified the situation. He was able to improvise a device that would collect all the discharge in a very difficult location. This saved a monumental amount of hospital supplies and, more importantly, the embarrassment of the patient every time he needed to be cleaned, which was very often. 

The following week I had another patient in a similar situation, they had a massive amount of fecal fluid coming out of their incision. There was a large stack of gauze over the wound to absorb this discharge. This method left the contaminated gauze sitting on the patient’s surgical wound, leaving a vulnerable patient open to infection. I called this nurse and without hesitation he said I will be right there. Again, he improvised a collection device for this fecal discharge, this was not a situation where you could slap a device on and it would work. He had to build it up so it would even get a seal, and this discharge was coming out a 6 cm half open wound. 

This is just a couple of many situations in the hospital where I needed this nurse’s expertise, and he, without question, came to help immediately. Lastly, I have asked this nurse about personal wound care situations as well. One of my friends was on hospice and had a wound on his back, I know standard wound care/dressing but getting a wound to heal on a 94 year old on hospice is different. He explained everything I needed to do to help his wound heal. He is so passionate about wound care and is willing to teach and help whoever, whenever he can. Paul is everything that the DAISY Award stands for and more.