ABPANC Awards
ABPANC Announces 2005 Recipient of the ABPANC Advocacy Award
The 5th annual ABPANC Advocacy Award was presented at the CPAN/CAPA Celebration Breakfast April 18, 2005 to a very surprised Emily Allen, RN, CPAN, Clinical Manager of the PACU and Stepdown Unit at The Childrens Hospital at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City. This award publicly recognizes a CPAN or CAPA certified nurse who exemplifies leadership as a patient advocate and is the highest accolade given to a certified nurse. Nominated by a staff nurse colleague, Angela Knisley, the following exemplar was submitted describing only one of many instances when Emily truly advocated for a patient and his family. Emily was presented with the beautiful Lladro Nurse Statue and a scholarship for her next recertification fee. Angela, as the individual who took the time to submit the exemplar, received a $100 cash award. The unit in which Emily and Angela work received a $350 award to use for certification/recertification fees, books, or continuing education. Read the winning story as follows: Story I would like to share with you a shining moment of patient advocacy that occurred at my work place. We recently had a patient in our unit who touched all our hearts and lives. This young patient suffered from a brain tumor and underwent surgery twice to attempt to reduce the size of the tumor. My colleague first met the patient and family at the time of the second surgery. Following that surgery the young patient was scheduled for six weeks of radiation therapy requiring general anesthesia every day. Every Monday morning the patient and family entered the outpatient unit to have intravenous ports accessed for use by the anesthesiologists. After radiation treatment the patient came to the PACU for a period of recovery and observation and then was discharged home. My colleague has observed this process often and has implemented many changes that help families deal with the repeated stress and frustration of daily treatments. These steps and process changes are all made with the patient in mind. On the first day of treatment she personally met with the family and patient to tell them exactly what to expect. She provided them with her cell phone number, pager number and instructed them to contact her at anytime to answer questions and explain routines and activities. In addition, she assigned one or two primary care nurses in the PACU as resources and daily care givers. Following radiation treatments the patient was brought to an isolation room to recover. This provided a consistent environment with very few surprises for a young child. She also made sure the parents follow the patient into the PACU to be present when their child awoke. Sometimes these children are hungry and ready to eat so she made sure breakfast was selected by the patient pre-op, ordered and ready for the patient post-op. This process is applied to all patients however it was especially appreciated by this small patient and his family. For some reason it seemed to make a really big difference in his care. We soon learned he liked pancakes and made arrangements to get double pancakes delivered to the PACU. His father was very grateful and shared with the staff it was sometimes the only meal he would eat. His father refused to eat or even have a cup of coffee until his son was ready to eat. My colleague made sure a hot cup of coffee was available for Dad in the PACU at just the right moment. With weeks of therapy it was not long before a bond was formed with patient and nurse. She began coming to work two hours early on Monday mornings to access this young patient’s port. Outpatient surgery is busy early in the mornings and this patient often needed extra attention and care. She developed a game with him that put him in control of his care. The game was Red Light/ Green Light. Basically, if the light was red he was not ready for her to start her work and when he gave the green light she could do what needed to be done to prepare him for his treatment. Soon all his special needs were known by other primary care nurses A short while after radiation treatments were completed our young patient returned for an MRI. The results were not good and revealed his tumor had grown. His family and physician were shocked. Another brain surgery was scheduled to attempt an excision. After an all day procedure our young patient entered the PACU and was placed in his special isolation room with two of his nurses for recovery. Parents and extended family were all part of the patient’s recovery. The family learned there was little more that could be done for the tumor and resources were contacted at St. Jude’s and Johns Hopkins to assure the family all was being done that was available. Family and staff all cried. As a result the patient was kept in the PACU an extra long time this day to allow the family a chance to grieve and process the news with friends and caregivers who all understood their special needs. My colleague adjusted the rules because once the patient was transferred to the Pedi ICU visitation would be much stricter. A few days after surgery a friend of the family called my colleague and shared how grateful and appreciative the family was for her and all the PACU staff. His mother stated the PACU was the one place in the hospital the patient felt safe. If they had to hear bad news it was right to hear it with the nurses that cared so much for all of them. Without my colleagues innovative and caring insights for this patient and his family everyone would have been confused and frustrated for his six weeks of treatment. If not for her sincerity, compassion, competence, care and example this family would have missed precious moments in this young child’s life. This nurse made a difference. |
