This nurse had an extremely complicated, in-depth discharge on a complex patient that had been on our floor for about a month. She provided excellent nursing care as always, but she also created a medication schedule along with a care schedule complete with a checklist for the family to follow at home. She gave the family a sense of ease when they left. She did all of this while juggling a very difficult patient assignment. Not once did she show any sign of stress to her patients or families. Even when this nurse was busy with patient care she will never think twice about lending a hand to her co-workers as well. She's an amazing patient advocate for our little ones when they can't speak up for themselves. Our unit is lucky to have her.

Addendum to above nomination:
The patient of subject was an infant male with a complex past medical history that was recently born to two teenage parents. The patient was diagnosed with infantile spasms and was not only starting a corticosteroid treatment plan, but also beginning a ketogenic diet. The patient was admitted to our unit for about a month. This nurse had taken care of him for 2 shifts that week, and on her first shift, caught a significant medication error related to how a medication was ordered. As a patient on a ketogenic diet, they are not permitted to have sugar, but the patient had multiple medications supplied as oral suspensions which all contain sugar (or have the potential to contain sugar). This nurse recognized and caught this mistake as soon as she started her shift. Her second shift was a huge day for the family since they had been here for over a month, but also because these young parents were about to be discharged with a large amount of responsibility they hadn't had when they entered the hospital. His new plan of care consisted of giving an intramuscular steroid shot twice a day (that was not a prefilled syringe and needed drawn up and diluted), bolus tube feeds with a specialty formula every 3 hours with a continuous feeding overnight, dipping his urine for glucose and ketones, and giving multiple home medications (which are pills that need crushed and diluted). This nurse recognized their apprehension and made it a day of happiness rather than a day of stress. She made sure the patient had a "going home outfit" since majority of the clothes the parents had were dirty from their lengthy stay. The family loved this! When the time came for the patient to be discharged, it was around 5 o'clock PM. This nurse had an extremely busy assignment (on top of admitting patients), but not once did she let that show in her care to, not only this patient, but to any of her patients that day. With everything going on, she sat down to make an Excel spreadsheet for the family complete with a medication schedule for his daily medications with a checklist for when they were given, easy how-to reminder instructions for the injection, a checklist for the urine dips with the result, and a checklist for starting and ending the tube feeds. She made about a month's worth of copies of this checklist to give to the family to ensure that everything they needed to do was done and done timely and correctly. The family was being sent home with a brand-new feeding pump, and this nurse made time to read the given instructions and program the pump for his next feed when they were at home. After all of this was completed (around 7 o'clock PM by now), This nurse had the parents go to the outpatient pharmacy to pick up their medications. This nurse received a phone call that the prescriptions were never received by the pharmacy. This nurse tracked down the ordering physicians and found out they had been sent to the incorrect tube station and made sure they were then sent to the correct place. So if we look back on all that has occurred, this discharge took about 2 hours. It was done thoroughly and effectively. The parents left our unit educated and feeling more confident in their ability to care for their child at home. She did all this and still managed to care for THREE other patients that all received their medications on time and all continued to receive amazing patient care. This nurse truly cares of the patients she takes care of as if they were her family and our unit and our patients are so lucky to have her.