In September 2023, I started my nursing career as a nervous new grad in the NICU and had the most life-changing experience, all because of my phenomenal preceptor, Aly Bruno. Aly is one of the kindest, compassionate, hard-working, dedicated, and knowledgeable nurses who work in the NICU, and I want to recognize her for all of her hard work as a staff nurse and preceptor. She constantly goes above and beyond not only as a primary nurse but also as a colleague, mentor, and friend. She fiercely advocates for her patients and orientees, whether it be with the medical team or with management, and always puts providing exceptional care above all else.

Aly never makes orientees feel like they do not belong. She welcomes new colleagues with open arms and always finds ways to make them feel comfortable and include them in learning opportunities, even if it means putting herself at a deficit. She is always looking to elevate the nursing care that we provide in the NICU. Aly leads by example. She instills the highest expectations and standards in all of her orientees to ensure that they are set up for success. Being a mother herself, it is easy for her to empathize with the families of the infants we care for. This is one of her greatest strengths and something that I profoundly admire about her. She has deeply instilled in me the importance of diligent care and emphasizes the teachings of Florence Nightingale when she precepts. She made me see that no small task is unimportant in the eyes of the families whose babies we take care of.

Going a step beyond nursing care and creating a healing environment is essential not only when caring for babies in the NICU, but also for the parents. She is meticulous and attentive to the smallest of details. From the way she makes all of the baby blankets match, to the way the floors in her rooms shine, to how her patients are always clean and promptly attended to, any patient that Aly takes care of is left better than how she found them. I have seen firsthand how that has changed the attitudes and perceptions of so many parents, which has enhanced their experience during such a difficult period in their lives.

Aly has precepted so many of the amazing nurses that we have in the NICU throughout her 11 years on the unit. Although her only obligation was to train me during my orientation shifts, she has always made it known that she is available as a resource even when she is not working. Whether it is related to scheduling, education classes, policies, procedures, general care questions, debriefing after a tough shift, or just for some advice, I always know that I can reach out to her without judgment.

During my orientation, we admitted a baby who had a traumatic birth and had to undergo Body Cooling. We coded the baby for 40 minutes in the delivery room, and it truly is one of the worst things I have ever experienced up to this point. The baby ended up passing the following day, and it deeply affected me. Aly could see that I needed comfort and made an effort to check on me often to see if I was doing okay. We met up outside of work multiple times in the following weeks. She was the only person I felt like that cared about what I had gone through and was the only person who was willing to listen to how I was feeling without telling me, “I should be happy because the baby is no longer suffering.” The compassion and kindness that she showed towards my feelings, and the lessons she learned from past experiences that she shared with me, were all instrumental in my decision to continue my journey as a NICU RN with a newfound feeling of motivation and self-grace. Aly always makes an effort to help me, and there are not many people in the world like that. Every day, she inspires me to be a better nurse. She is truly one of a kind and persistently goes above and beyond as a nurse and as my preceptor/mentor.