Our oncology nurse navigator, Kim Kauffroath, worked on a devastating patient case to collaborate with the oncology care team and advocate for the patient by speaking up, asking questions, and doing what is right by being proactive. The case is a young mother who has new recurrent aggressive and terminal cancer admitted to SMMC. The nurse navigator spoke up during our local tumor board to advocate for the patient and made suggestions to advocate for the patient's quality of life such by suggesting a palliative care consult and an inpatient radiation oncology consult to possibly start while the patient is admitted due to her pain and in hopes to expedite care so she can get back home to her young children.

Later that day, she visited the patient along with the palliative care nurse practitioner and physician to begin conversations to help the patient understand her disease progression, discuss the next steps in her cancer workup, the expected physician consults that would be taking place, and expedite facilitation of conversations with her young family to prepare for what is to come. Kim demonstrates the Sutter Health values of compassion, curiosity, teamwork, and excellence and has given this patient and many others the gift of advocacy and individualized support in times of need.