June 2024
Debi
Shrewsbury
,
BSN, RN
ICU
Gottlieb Memorial Hospital
Melrose Park
,
IL
United States
She always keeps the goal patient-focused. She is known to say, "If you put the patient first, you can never go wrong."
Debi is the embodiment of a servant leader. Her experience as a nurse, especially as an ICU nurse, helps her to really understand and appreciate the needs of this critical patient population as well as the needs of her team. She always keeps the goal patient-focused. She is known to say, "If you put the patient first, you can never go wrong." This advice has stuck with me, and is shaping how I view healthcare leadership. Debi attends all of the patient quality and safety meetings, including sepsis, falls, HAPI, and CAUTI, and she is the chair of the Code Blue/RRT Committee. She also leads our quarterly Critical Care Meetings, and facilitates our inter-professional collaboration with ICU physicians, RT, and nursing. Her participation in these quality committees helps our team identify areas for improvement and then use up-to-date evidence to bring these best practices back to our unit. Our unit participates in shared governance, and Debi supports our ideas and input when we have concerns or want to suggest changes. She encourages our collaboration and use of evidence-based research to implement change in our ICU. Debi sees her team as individuals with hopes, lives, and ambitions and not just warm bodies to fill a shift. She meets with and encourages our newest nurses, helping to build them up and guide their novice nursing practice. She identifies individual nurses who are looking for opportunities to grow or even start thinking about leadership themselves. She helps them see the potential in themselves so that they feel confident to start precepting, taking charge, and becoming superusers. She genuinely praises our team when we accomplish something special, like our recent TEVAR procedure, but also when we just make it through a tough shift. I have never experienced a manager who cared so much about the unit as a whole but also about each of the members of that team. Without her steadfast support, I know this unit would be worse off. I can only hope to be half the leader she is someday.