Casey is an amazing new nurse. She always goes above-and-beyond what's required of her. On multiple shifts (too many to list since it's almost every shift), she reviews the shift assignments, and when she notices a dependency, she'll volunteer to take on additional patients to ease others' loads. On every shift, whenever she has down time, she either goes out to speak to patients, or takes wipes and cleans the unit. She constantly asks her coworkers how she can assist them. When all work is completed, she then spends any extra time with the patients - checking in on them, finding out how they're doing, and what additional needs can she meet. We work with a challenging patient population and almost without fail, most patients comment on how much care and empathy Casey shows them. She certainly does her part in improving patient satisfaction. It is a joy to work with Casey and she deserves so much recognition.
One time, we had a patient who had chronic alcoholism and was suffering severe withdrawal symptoms. She took the extra effort to sit with this patient any free time she had to ensure all his needs were attended to, and also show the patient that she really cared. It was due to her efforts, we all feel, that the patient showed a dramatic turnaround.
Another time, I had a patient discharge, a patient who went into seclusion (with all the associated paperwork), two back-to-back admissions, and a med cart. I never had to ask for help, as Casey was the one who recognized my stress and offered to help me out.
On another occasion, Casey had a full patient load and a med cart yet stepped up to volunteer to do an admission when she recognized that filling our beds was the best decision for the unit, as well as allowing much needed psychiatric care to be provided to a patient waiting in the ED.