January 2012
Andrea
Ansley
,
RN BSN CCRN
ICU
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano
Plano
,
TX
United States
I would like to nominate Andrea Ansley RN BSN CCRN for The DAISY Award. She is what I strive to be as a nurse. This nurse always has the best interests of her patients and their families in mind with all of the nursing interventions she performs with/for them. She is able to tailor her communication techniques to the level of whomever she is conversing with. Of the many wonderful things I have witnessed her do for the benefit of her patients the encounter I would like to nominate her for is this one.
We had a patient that came to our unit with complications from a medication that was prescribed to save his life. The complication left him dependant on a large amount of high flow oxygen. If the oxygen was diminished or removed for any period of time his oxygen saturation would quickly drop to a level not compatible with life. The patient, family, doctors and nurses looked throughout all the conventional and non-conventional methods of treatment and could not find any way to reverse this life ending complication. This nurse was assigned many times to this patient and family. She was able to develop a bond with the patient and his family. She was taking care of them the day the doctors talked with him and his wife about what heroic measures could be used to prolong his life (but not cure his condition.) The patient declined to be placed on a ventilator, since it would not reverse his condition, and understood he would still die in a short period of time (5-7 days was the estimate given by the physician).
The nurse elicited the patient’s goals that he wanted to accomplish prior to dying. He wanted to live long enough to see his unborn child. The patient’s wife was 38 weeks pregnant with their 5th child. She talked with a consulting doctor, her nurse manager and many other people throughout the hospital. The end result was a doctor was found that would induce his wife. This nurse came in on her day off to care for the patient so he could travel to the L&D unit at THP and be present during his wife’s labor and witness the birth of his child. She was also his nurse the day he passed away, and he was able to die while holding his child in his arms, with his wife at his side. If it were not for this nurse taking the time to elicit his goals, and then working with a vast interdisciplinary team, he would have died without seeing his child being born.
We had a patient that came to our unit with complications from a medication that was prescribed to save his life. The complication left him dependant on a large amount of high flow oxygen. If the oxygen was diminished or removed for any period of time his oxygen saturation would quickly drop to a level not compatible with life. The patient, family, doctors and nurses looked throughout all the conventional and non-conventional methods of treatment and could not find any way to reverse this life ending complication. This nurse was assigned many times to this patient and family. She was able to develop a bond with the patient and his family. She was taking care of them the day the doctors talked with him and his wife about what heroic measures could be used to prolong his life (but not cure his condition.) The patient declined to be placed on a ventilator, since it would not reverse his condition, and understood he would still die in a short period of time (5-7 days was the estimate given by the physician).
The nurse elicited the patient’s goals that he wanted to accomplish prior to dying. He wanted to live long enough to see his unborn child. The patient’s wife was 38 weeks pregnant with their 5th child. She talked with a consulting doctor, her nurse manager and many other people throughout the hospital. The end result was a doctor was found that would induce his wife. This nurse came in on her day off to care for the patient so he could travel to the L&D unit at THP and be present during his wife’s labor and witness the birth of his child. She was also his nurse the day he passed away, and he was able to die while holding his child in his arms, with his wife at his side. If it were not for this nurse taking the time to elicit his goals, and then working with a vast interdisciplinary team, he would have died without seeing his child being born.