I have worked under Mrs. McCloud as my director for the past 13 years. She has become a role model of a nurse leader to employees and continues to exemplify true professional nurse leader qualities in her everyday practice. She is a hard-working employee, who is always a call away if her nursing team needs her assistance and expertise. She stands firmly by Parkland's mission and her priority has always been to ensure that the patients receive professional and safe nursing care. Mrs. McCloud has dedicated the many years of her nursing career to make the Surgical division stand out in the provision of excellent nursing care. She is a true expert in the field of nursing leadership. I have seen her come in early and leave late at night if work had to be done. She keeps the bar high and expects her employees to follow the example of hard work and dedication. Mrs. McCloud knows her employees by name, she had sent letters to employees to congratulate them on their accomplishments or express her condolences in the event of employees' family deaths. She is supportive of her managers and nursing staff but does not tolerate laziness and procrastination.
Mrs. McCloud encouraged and supported our unit nurses to get certified in Orthopedic nursing. Because of her support, we have at least 30% of our staff who got certified in the past 2 years. She encourages and assists the management team to send staff nurses to professional conferences and certification courses. She encouraged nurse managers to get bedside staff involved in various committees so that the clinical nurse's voice was heard. Mrs. McCloud was a tremendous support to our unit during the journey "Pathway to Excellence". Her picture was on our train as the main driver! Our employees know Kim McCloud by name, and she knows and always greets everyone from nursing staff to PCAs by name.
Mrs. McCloud is a valued asset to Parkland hospital. I have seen her act promptly if an emergency arises. She has helped our unit when our staffing was short and ensured that patient and staff ration on 9 Ortho was safe and appropriate to the patients' acuity. Mrs. McCloud has developed and successfully completed many projects during the years I have worked with her. A few years ago, she organized a team of nurses and opened a small unit to move ER patients out of ER while they were waiting on beds. She also created a great PowerPoint and trained nurse leaders in educating and orienting Surgical division employees to the new hospital prior to our major move in 2015. She made the move a lot smoother and less stressful for our staff.
Kim McCloud is an exceptional nurse leader and a valuable employee. She knows everyone and she knows everything. She is in expert in hospital compliance and the reason that Surgery division did so well is because she supervised and trained us to be the best.
I am thankful and I am honored to work under a leader such as Kim McCloud. She is a role model for the new generation of leaders with her valuable and irreplaceable qualities. She deserves to be recognized for her hard work and dedication to Parkland patients and employees.