Susan Baum is an exemplary nurse, individual, mother, and colleague. She has been an SICU nurse for 26 years and has been certified in care of the critical adult patient for over 20 years. Sue was a 1985 graduate of St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing. She is a preceptor for new hires and graduates, a mentor to other nurses, and a friend to all. She pioneered the creation and organization of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd annual Critical Care Awareness and Recognition Day. Sue is also involved with many hospital taskforces and working committees including hand hygiene and organ donor recovery. She has created many educational sessions for staff as well as devised a critical care guide for patients and their families: While You Are Waiting… Her dedication and compassion to nursing and care of patient, families, and staff holds her in high regard as a true model for relationship-based care nursing.

Sue has always been a primary nurse at heart. She not only keeps track of all the patients she cares for-some even after they leave the unit, but she has developed new practices for ICU nurses to better develop relationships with their patients and families even at the end of life.

Two years ago, Susan developed an innovative program that has come to be known as “Seeds of Hope.” It was designed to ease the stress and perceived burden of a patient’s passing from life, from the perspectives of the patient, their family, and the healthcare team. The innovative practice was created by ideas based on Sue’s personal experience with a loved one who had been hospitalized. With help from both national and international resources along with evidence-based literature, Susan’s Seeds of Hope has since blossomed into a beautiful, patient- and family-centered tribute to the memory of the life of one individual patient celebrated by many. Patients receive handmade blankets from the hospital volunteer group. Family and friends honor their passing loved one by personally making handprints of them that are embossed over poetry created by the ICU staff. All families receive Forget-Me-Not seeds that are packaged with an appropriate poem or prayer. Along with the handprints, some families have asked for locks of hair and ventilator water (representing the last breath of their loved one). Sue has artfully taught ICU staff how to honor every family’s request while weaving that subtle change into her Seeds of Hope practice. Families stay and reminisce around their loved one while sharing a meal or conversation. As a final gesture, Susan ensures that every family receives a bereavement guide as well as personal mailings from staff-of words of encouragement and counsel-for up to one year after their loved one’s passing.

Sue’s goal is to create a network practice change that includes Seeds of Hope being embedded in every clinical area of the hospital. When the time is right, she would also like to be able to aid its growth by coordinating her Seeds into the future fabric of SJHHC. Regardless of the future, at present, Susan Baum is a prime example of why great nurses are DAISY nurses: compassionate, motivated, and extremely caring.