Samantha Brotherton
July 2024
Samantha
Brotherton
,
RN
Tower 2
WellSpan York Hospital
York
,
PA
United States
Samantha went above and beyond to make sure that the daughter felt comfortable with the decisions she made for her mother. The unending support and care she provided for this patient and her family was a wonderful thing to witness and be a part of.
Samantha has been a nurse on T2 for just under a year. She started out working in central monitoring and then came to T2 as a nursing assistant. I had the pleasure of working with this RN as a nursing assistant on nights and then precepting her after she became an RN.
In the 9 months that she has been an RN on T2, she has encountered a few really difficult and challenging situations. Two specifically are why I am nominating Samantha for the DAISY Award. Both situations involved patients who were gravely ill and their family coming to terms with end of life. The situations were almost identical. Both patients were not yet in comfort care or on inpatient hospice but were dying.
In one situation, Samantha spent a lot of time talking with the patient’s wife, explaining her husband’s condition and his rapid deterioration. She sat with the wife and let her talk through her feelings. She was able to create a trusting bond with the wife and, when the wife was ready, worked tirelessly for hours with the providers to get this patient into inpatient hospice in the middle of the night. Hospice came in at 3 am and finally, the patient was comfortable. The wife was able to sit with him knowing he was comfortable. It was an emotional and trying situation for Samantha, who handled it like a well-experienced hospice nurse.
Not long after this incident, Samantha came to me and said her patient’s daughter wanted to bring her mother home to die. It was 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I could tell that Samantha was getting anxious about this as she had to deal with the emotional roller coaster of the previous patient. We sat together and I told her where to start and who to reach out to.
Samantha advocated for her patient and her daughter. She managed to get orders to place the patient on comfort care, spoke with the on-call social worker, and started the plan to discharge the patient on home hospice the next day.
In the middle of making multiple phone calls and speaking with multiple disciplines, Samantha realized that at midnight, it was the patient’s daughter’s birthday. She ordered a cake from a diner and had it delivered to the daughter. A card was made and all the staff on the floor signed it for the daughter. Samantha went above and beyond to make sure that the daughter felt comfortable with the decisions she made for her mother. The unending support and care she provided for this patient and her family was a wonderful thing to witness and be a part of.
Samantha has a special way with her patients. She can get patients to open up to her, and the rapport and bond she develops with even the most difficult of patients and families is something I, as a nurse of 26 years, am in awe of and envious of. I truly feel that Samantha is a DAISY Nurse.
In the 9 months that she has been an RN on T2, she has encountered a few really difficult and challenging situations. Two specifically are why I am nominating Samantha for the DAISY Award. Both situations involved patients who were gravely ill and their family coming to terms with end of life. The situations were almost identical. Both patients were not yet in comfort care or on inpatient hospice but were dying.
In one situation, Samantha spent a lot of time talking with the patient’s wife, explaining her husband’s condition and his rapid deterioration. She sat with the wife and let her talk through her feelings. She was able to create a trusting bond with the wife and, when the wife was ready, worked tirelessly for hours with the providers to get this patient into inpatient hospice in the middle of the night. Hospice came in at 3 am and finally, the patient was comfortable. The wife was able to sit with him knowing he was comfortable. It was an emotional and trying situation for Samantha, who handled it like a well-experienced hospice nurse.
Not long after this incident, Samantha came to me and said her patient’s daughter wanted to bring her mother home to die. It was 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I could tell that Samantha was getting anxious about this as she had to deal with the emotional roller coaster of the previous patient. We sat together and I told her where to start and who to reach out to.
Samantha advocated for her patient and her daughter. She managed to get orders to place the patient on comfort care, spoke with the on-call social worker, and started the plan to discharge the patient on home hospice the next day.
In the middle of making multiple phone calls and speaking with multiple disciplines, Samantha realized that at midnight, it was the patient’s daughter’s birthday. She ordered a cake from a diner and had it delivered to the daughter. A card was made and all the staff on the floor signed it for the daughter. Samantha went above and beyond to make sure that the daughter felt comfortable with the decisions she made for her mother. The unending support and care she provided for this patient and her family was a wonderful thing to witness and be a part of.
Samantha has a special way with her patients. She can get patients to open up to her, and the rapport and bond she develops with even the most difficult of patients and families is something I, as a nurse of 26 years, am in awe of and envious of. I truly feel that Samantha is a DAISY Nurse.