Carter Bell
November 2021
Carter
Bell
,
BSN, RN
Clinical Resources
Tampa General Hospital
Tampa
,
FL
United States

 

 

 

Nurse Carter took it upon herself to become my advocate.
I want to tell you about Nurse Carter. On Wednesday, I realized that I was uncomfortable with the attending Cardiologist's decision to go forward with the Nuclear Stress Test in lieu of a heart or cardiac catheterization. The issue arose because of my unique history with my heart related issues, chief of which is I had 5 myocardial infarctions and a total of 9 stents. Three of which occluded without any troponin level elevation, nothing on CT scans or any other physical markers. It wasn’t until after catheterization that 3 occluded vessels on different occasions become apparent. Nurse Carter took it upon herself to become my advocate. She contacted her Charge Nurse to alert them of the situation, she located the older files proving what I stated was true, she also had ready the last 2 heart caths that showed a progression from 50-60% of occlusion. When I returned to the room, all of this was ready so that when I did speak to the Cardiologist, there was no hunting for records. Nurse Carter from the moment she felt and noticed my bewilderment after a not so favorable encounter with a Nurse Practitioner who told me to “Just go home” at the beginning of her shift and reported it to her Charge Nurse to having my back when advocating for me get acknowledgment and having my records from years ago ready before the end of her shift all while caring for her other patients without any disturbance. She never stopped being an advocate and I believe she should be recognized for all she did for me and the other patients on the 5th floor.