Chantal is one of the sweetest, most empathetic nurses on 9 Wollman. When there is a difficult patient assignment, she challenges herself by choosing to care for those patients. We had a patient transferred from 9 Uris into 951 on our floor, this patient was placed in our care especially because he required more nursing care hours than 9 Uris was able to provide based on their nursing ratio. From the beginning, Chantal was one of the nurses who not just agreed to care for him but requested to care for him. This patient felt a strong connection with Chantal from the minute she began taking care of him. When I would perform my leadership rounding, he would always say "Chantal is the best," or "I hope Chantal is back tonight, so she can be my nurse."
I had the privilege of being in the room while Chantal was providing care for him and he said to her, "Chantal, just hearing your voice makes it all better." Since the beginning of June, caring for this patient has been challenging for the staff on 9 Wollman in general, as the nurse who cares for him can only have up three patients due tothe demanding nature of his emotional, medical and personal needs. Assuch, nurses often go over ratio in order to accommodate this patient, and the nurse caring forhimhas a tough time balancing the needs of all three of his or her patients to ensure safe, quality patient care is being delivered to all of them.
Chantal has taken on this challenge from the get go, and the beautiful thing is that she does not see it as a challenge anymore. It just comes natural for her to choose to have him in her district, or for her to allow other nurse's the opportunity to care for himso she can be the one going over ratio instead of them. She has developed a bond with this patient that goes far above and beyond the normal day-to-day nursing care we provide. She is his absolute favorite nurse on our floor and he trusts her immensely. He has told me time and time again that he is pleased with the nursing care on 9 Wollman, but that Chantal is a special nurse and he appreciates everything she has done for him.
I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this award than Chantal Anderson. Not only is she compassionate and empathetic, but she is real with him and makes him feel like he will get through these hard times no matter what. She lets him know that he has survived the worst and she is able to make him smile when he feels down. She has proven the strength of her clinical skills and the bigness ofher heart.