Vicki Patterson often goes above and beyond for her patients and her fellow staff members. She has had an incredibly tough year both professionally and personally but has pushed thru to come out on top. She demonstrates keen skills in critical thinking, decision making, and team building. Vicki is extremely accountable to her profession and her peers. She addresses all patient, family, and/or staff requests/needs in a timely manner often attempting to provide beyond their request or need. Vicki is absolutely a patient advocate and will try to obtain the best care possible for each and every patient and family member she comes in contact with. Vicki has exceptional communication and interpersonal skills and is always open for questions or concerns from her patients, their families, or even students we have on our unit. She is a role model on our unit and consistently demonstrates a positive attitude toward her job and role on 8 PCU. She definitely demonstrates a passion for excellence in every aspect of her work which is evident by the following letter we received:

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I wanted to take a moment now to share with you the great story about the care that my father-in-law received in his final days before passing at OSU WMC Rhodes Hospital. He was admitted after a brief visit to the Emergency Room service and was cared for in the step down unit. His initial issue was a severe Urinary Tract Infection, which was followed by bacterial and aspirational pneumonia. Despite aggressive treatment, the pneumonia eventually became too much and it took his life peacefully on the evening of Mother's Day.

While those are the facts, what we want to convey is our tremendous gratitude for the quality of care and the overall caring attitude of the exceptional staff of nurses, CNA's, aides and of course, doctors that tried valiantly to help him recover, and then provided thoughtful and sympathetic palliative care after the doctors advised and the family decided that he would not recover. As you know, we have had a number of occasions to avail ourselves of your hospital services. While most of those experiences were very positive, this experience was exceptional in nearly all respects. Your team was simply great!!

... one person on that exceptional team who truly rose above any of our expectations and to whom we will be eternally grateful. She is RN Vickie Patterson. Vickie was lead nurse for several of the shifts over the nearly 2 weeks, but was specifically taking a double shift on Sunday, Mother's Day. Her care and attention to every need of her patient and our family was simply amazing. Her warmth, sympathy, sense of humor, and "do anything she could to help" attitude will be long remembered by all of us. She was also invaluable in helping us through the hospice evaluation process.

For example; Dad was going to be transported by ambulance to hospice care on Sunday night. All of the preparations were made by Vickie and the team, the paramedics arrived at 7PM and loaded him on the gurney, then he stopped breathing in the elevator and the paramedics confirmed his passing in the ambulance while sitting in the driveway to the Emergency Room. This was apparently unprecedented for the paramedics, so they we not sure about how to handle the situation, and the emergency room staff was also not clear on what to do or who was responsible for doing it. I finally (after 20 minutes) decided to go back up to the 8th floor, found Vickie, explained what had happened and asked her what to do.

Vickie simply took over. She told me she would handle this, took me back down in the staff elevator to the emergency room, told the paramedics and emergency room staff what was going to happen (that she was re-assuming responsibility for the patient), had them transport him back to his room us in tow, arranged for a doctor to confirm his death, and then orchestrated a viewing for us and private time, got food, a chaplain and social worker, and she and the team helped us for another 2 hours to make everything right after this most awkward series of events.

Vicki's actions were truly above and beyond the call of duty; at least we think so! We are so grateful!!