Carol
Gatschet
January 2012
Carol
Gatschet
,
RN
Pediatrics
Hays Medical Center
Hays
,
KS
United States

 

 

 

group photo: Kristy Schlaefli, Clinical Nurse Supervisor; Carol Gatschet, RN; Celeste Gray, Nursing Director, Terry Siek, Chief Nursing Officer

Nomination 1:

Carol has repetitively gone above and beyond the serve her patients and their families. Carol’s soft smile and calm demeanor relaxes the patient for IV starts and blood draws and helps alleviate the parental anxiety associated with having a sick child. She pays special attention to the parents of our patients, encouraging them to take time to eat, shower and get much needed rest assuring them she will rock, feed, and entertain their precious child. She will always go the extra mile... making endless phone calls to find EMS for transfer, to help locate lab results, calling out prescriptions, and even has been known to order pizza. Patients repeatedly request her. She loves to teach children, parents, students, and her fellow colleagues. She has a love for her job, a passion which you find so rarely. Carol is a true blessing to HMC and to her patients.

Nomination 2:

Prior to this year, I had no experience with my child being in the hospital except for childbirth. In May, my son was diagnosed with a bacterial infection of the bloodstream and he spent 5 days in the hospital. I have to say that all of our nurses were truly phenomenal, but one nurse particularly made our stay very pleasant. Carol was a night nurse at the time and she sympathized with us, made sure our needs were met, and also brought a little humor to our son. Although her shift ended and she left before we were completely up for the day, she left a picture hanging for our son to see when he woke up ...complete with stickers and a few little sayings. We had the unfortunate luck of being back in the hospital with him just over 2 months later with an elbow fracture and bilateral wrist fractures. We were fortunate to have Carol again as our nurse. She took the time to ""bandage up"" a stuffed animal to appear to have bilateral broken arms that our son was able to take with him to surgery. She also made another picture with stickers and a timeline for him to see when he came out of surgery. Again, all of our nurses were wonderful, but Carol's humor and the little extras she did to make him (and us) feel important have stood out in my mind. When I happened to see that we could nominate a nurse for the DAISY Award, Carol immediately came to my mind as most deserving.

Nomination 3:

I would like to nominate Carol Gatschet for a DAISY award for her excellence in nursing. Carol has always been willing to go the extra mile. When I have had difficult patients on the pediatric floor she is always helping smooth out bumps to make their experience as well as my own, better. She is also very good at nicely suggesting measures to be taken for patients when I am struggling at 3 in the morning to come up with all applicable orders. She is quick to respond to patient requests, and quick to respond to my orders. When I have problems with lab, xray or respiratory treatments, she is one step ahead of me to help us figure out the problem. She is also quick to volunteer for shifts that are open for night or day shifts. She is just as good whether she is working night or day. Most importantly, Carol always has a very positive attitude, and I appreciate it greatly. My own attitude can sometimes get the best of me, but I have never known Carol to be anything but patient and kind. One time, I had a mom of a patient who was very high anxiety despite her child having very mild respiratory concerns. I felt mom's frustration level rising with my explanations as my frustration level was rising too. Carol spent extra time with this mom to explain what was going on and to develop insights into the source of the mom's anxiety. Turns out the mom was recently diagnosed with a chronic debilitating disease and was having lots of personal and social stressors. She had not mentioned this during the history for either myself or the E.D. physician who had also taken a history. Carol provided a lot of reassurance and a good listener, and the tension was reduced to zero. I hope, if nothing else, that this reaffirms Carol's value as a pediatric nurse and that her compassion be recognized with the DAISY Award.