Alana Black
October 2022
Alana
Black
,
RN
Plastic Surgery Clinic
SickKids Hospital
Toronto
,
Ontario
Canada
Alana provides expert family-centered care and support to patients and their families as they navigate the ambulatory setting. Her role and skills are multifaceted.
Alana joined the Plastic Surgery Clinic team 3 years ago. She brought with her a wealth of knowledge, experience, and leadership skills from her years working on the inpatient Plastic Surgery Unit. The clinic is extremely busy with multiple specialty clinics, limited rooms, and utilizes numerous interdisciplinary health team members on a daily basis. It can be pure chaos in the hub room.
As the only clinic nurse, she expertly juggles so many responsibilities ensuring patients and families have timely access to interdisciplinary care. She collaborates regularly with the health care team advocating for patients' and families' right to have input into the care they receive. We watch in amazement and awe! Alana is our clinic superhero nurse! She deserves to be recognized.
I would describe her leadership style as quietly assertive and very effective; she is calm, reflective, and no request is too small or too big. She goes the extra mile for every child and family with the goal of ensuring the child and family receive the high-quality care they deserve and have a positive experience.
Alana provides expert family-centered care and support to patients and their families as they navigate the ambulatory setting. Her role and skills are multifaceted. It is so many aspects of her clinical practice that highlights that she deserves to be recognized. She consistently provides individualized, exceptional care which is thoughtful, compassionate, and inclusive for all; whether it is participating and supporting the patient and family during complex burn dressings, providing comprehensive developmentally appropriate preoperative education, providing expert advice, over the phone, for families with postoperative concerns, coordinating appropriate interdisciplinary care and precepting nursing students.
She makes it look easy and always with a smile! Alana continuously looks for new and innovative opportunities to improve the patient and family experience within the clinic setting and beyond. She understands that it can be extremely stressful for families as she reviews the preoperative education in the clinic setting and that families may not retain all information or may have further education or support needs once they leave the clinic.
Alana has developed and delivers virtual preoperative information sessions to further support families as they prepare for their child’s surgery. Alana is involved and supports new initiatives that improve patient care. She has been instrumental in the development of “excision postaxial polydactyly procedures” for infants under 3 months of age, in the clinic. These are breastfed or bottle-fed sedation procedures and this eliminates the need for a GA in the OR. Alana coordinates these procedures by; organizing scheduling, resources, and equipment, providing pre-procedural educational support for families, and supporting mothers through the procedure. She is present during the procedure; providing supportive, encouraging, and compassionate care to the mother and baby as this procedure is carried out. Alana is an amazing clinician, role model, patient and family advocate, leader, and Extraordinary Nurse and person. We are so fortunate to have her lead our clinic team and all clinical activities on a daily basis.
As the only clinic nurse, she expertly juggles so many responsibilities ensuring patients and families have timely access to interdisciplinary care. She collaborates regularly with the health care team advocating for patients' and families' right to have input into the care they receive. We watch in amazement and awe! Alana is our clinic superhero nurse! She deserves to be recognized.
I would describe her leadership style as quietly assertive and very effective; she is calm, reflective, and no request is too small or too big. She goes the extra mile for every child and family with the goal of ensuring the child and family receive the high-quality care they deserve and have a positive experience.
Alana provides expert family-centered care and support to patients and their families as they navigate the ambulatory setting. Her role and skills are multifaceted. It is so many aspects of her clinical practice that highlights that she deserves to be recognized. She consistently provides individualized, exceptional care which is thoughtful, compassionate, and inclusive for all; whether it is participating and supporting the patient and family during complex burn dressings, providing comprehensive developmentally appropriate preoperative education, providing expert advice, over the phone, for families with postoperative concerns, coordinating appropriate interdisciplinary care and precepting nursing students.
She makes it look easy and always with a smile! Alana continuously looks for new and innovative opportunities to improve the patient and family experience within the clinic setting and beyond. She understands that it can be extremely stressful for families as she reviews the preoperative education in the clinic setting and that families may not retain all information or may have further education or support needs once they leave the clinic.
Alana has developed and delivers virtual preoperative information sessions to further support families as they prepare for their child’s surgery. Alana is involved and supports new initiatives that improve patient care. She has been instrumental in the development of “excision postaxial polydactyly procedures” for infants under 3 months of age, in the clinic. These are breastfed or bottle-fed sedation procedures and this eliminates the need for a GA in the OR. Alana coordinates these procedures by; organizing scheduling, resources, and equipment, providing pre-procedural educational support for families, and supporting mothers through the procedure. She is present during the procedure; providing supportive, encouraging, and compassionate care to the mother and baby as this procedure is carried out. Alana is an amazing clinician, role model, patient and family advocate, leader, and Extraordinary Nurse and person. We are so fortunate to have her lead our clinic team and all clinical activities on a daily basis.