After watching a video about the DAISY Award and reading many of the nominations for other nurses, I thought of One Nurse: Pam Higgins. I have worked at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial for 14 ½ years now, many of those years with Pam. For the last 5 years or so, I have had the privilege of working weekend program with Pam as my 12 hour partner. Pam is The Best Nurse to follow and to give report off to. She exudes excellence every shift she works, our patients have the best care I have ever seen, and she always comes to work with a smile on her face and leaves with the same smile! Our patients have nothing but positive things to say about Pam and are happy when I tell them she is the nurse coming back after I leave.
I have come to realize working on 2K, that we have great nurses we work with, but we have a few Excellent nurses we work with. We have a group of nurses that we have all talked about as wanting to be our nurses if we were ever admitted to the hospital. Pam is one of those nurses. Her critical thinking, excellent assessment skills and time management are those others work to achieve. Her IV skills are unmatched on her shift. She gets called to other floors, other co-workers patients, even ER to start IV’s. My daughter was admitted to the hospital earlier this year, and Pam is the first person I called to see if she could stay until we got there. Of course, she did, and of course she got the IV on the first try and made me feel as comfortable as possible even though I was scared my daughter might need surgery. I am so appreciative that she stayed to do that for us.
Pam deserves this award, but also deserves to know on a daily basis what her co-workers think about her. She shows compassion and caring with her patients and fellow co-workers and is always willing to lend a hand. She gives and is the best EVERY day she works and THAT is what is deserving of being recognized. I feel like anyone can do one great thing that is above and beyond and get an award for it, but this award is great because it is for those nurses that are above and beyond on a daily basis, and might not get recognized for it because it has become “normal” for people to see them like that. It is far from “Normal” to be Excellent every day, and I love that an award like this shows that. Pam is very deserving of this award for that reason. She brings it every day and that is her “Normal.”
Pam is a nurse that exemplifies the kind of nurse that patients and families, as well as other nurses, physicians and members of the health care team, recognize as an OUTSTANDING role model!!