Breyanna is one of the new charge nurses in the ED and has quickly adapted to going above and beyond to do what is best for the department. Chaotic days seem less chaotic on her shifts. This particular event happened on Friday. It all started with a call about an uncooperative psychiatric patient with a services dog. Unfortunately, uncooperative psych patients are a common occurrence at our hospital. However, those with service animals are not. To further complicate the situation, this patient had an outbreak of scabies, and the service dog had a bad flea infestation. Rather than attempting to strip the dog away from the patient, or divert EMS away, Breyanna welcomes the patient and her dog. Brainstorming a list of ideas on what to do about this situation, she came up with a simple solution, "We have to bathe the dog."

Not only did she assemble a team of people to gather the correct supplies to bathe the dog, but she also helped bathe the dog outside of the Emergency department so that it could enter the walls with the patient. The patient initially agreed to let the bathing happen, but then became increasingly paranoid (and even verbally aggressive) and eloped. The patient was able to shake past security and run down Walton Way. Breyanna chased after and helped catch the patient while remaining professional and calm with her throughout the chaos. The patient was very uncooperative, lying down on the ground and refusing to get up. She was adamant that the hospital was trying to take her dog and began yelling obscurities and threatening to kill hospital staff. Breyanna did everything to reassure her that was not the case and was able to calm the patient down. Rather than security or AU PD dragging the verbally aggressive lady into the hospital in handcuffs (hence making an even bigger scene), Breyanna was able to de-escalate the situation. She quickly and calmly redirected the psych patient and extended her an invitation to help bathe the dog. If you were to ride by the hospital during that time, you'd see hospital management and a once aggressive psychiatric patient bonding through means of bathing a Chocolate Lab. After the bath, the patient willingly walked back into the hospital to receive the care she needed, and Breyanna went back to running the department.

This is the most inclusive form of patient and family-centered care that I have ever witnessed. It's uncommon to include pets in patient- and family-centered care, but if you own a pet, you know how important it is to the family. This example of kind and welcoming compassion is something that we all can look to as motivation for how to treat one another. What stood out most is that she did not make a big scene about the wonderful care she provided. She just went back to work. Way to lead by example, Bre!