Abigail Falbo

The DAISY Award recognizes nurses whose compassion transforms the lives of patients and families. While compassion is often demonstrated through individual patient encounters, Executive Nurse Leaders extend that compassion by creating systems that ensure every patient receives exceptional, dignified, and person-centered care. Abigail Falbo exemplifies this highest expression of nursing leadership.

Throughout her doctoral work, Abigail focused on one of healthcare's most vulnerable populations—patients living with serious chronic illness and the families who love and care for them. She recognized that too many patients endured unnecessary pain, uncertainty, and emotional distress because conversations about goals of care occurred too late, symptoms remained inadequately managed, and families were left to make difficult decisions during moments of crisis rather than through thoughtful, compassionate guidance. Rather than accepting these gaps as inevitable, Abigail chose to lead change.

Guided by compassion and grounded in evidence, Abigail envisioned a new model of care that places patients and families—not disease—at the center of every decision. Through the development of a hospital-based palliative care division, she created a vision for care that helps patients experience greater comfort, relief from suffering, and the dignity of having their values, wishes, and goals honored throughout their healthcare journey. Her work ensures that families are no longer expected to navigate some of life's most difficult conversations alone, but instead receive expert guidance, emotional support, and compassionate partnership during times of profound uncertainty.

Abigail also understood that compassionate care extends beyond patients and families to the clinicians who serve them. Caring for individuals with serious illness is emotionally demanding work. By bringing together physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, care coordinators, and other members of the interdisciplinary team, she designed a collaborative model that equips caregivers with the expertise, support, and shared decision-making needed to provide care with confidence, empathy, and humanity. Her leadership fosters an environment where clinicians are better able to care for others because they are no longer carrying the burden alone.

What makes Abigail truly extraordinary is her ability to transform compassion into lasting organizational change. While many nurses touch the lives of individual patients, Abigail's leadership will influence the experience of thousands of patients and families for years to come. Every patient whose pain is relieved, every family who feels heard and supported, every meaningful conversation that brings clarity during uncertainty, and every caregiver who finds renewed purpose through compassionate teamwork will reflect the enduring impact of her vision.

Abigail reminds us that the highest calling of nursing is not only to cure when possible, but always to comfort, to advocate, and to preserve dignity. Through visionary executive leadership, she has created a model of care that improves quality of life, relieves suffering, strengthens families, and supports the healthcare professionals who compassionately walk beside patients during life's most vulnerable moments. Her work will continue touching lives long after graduation, leaving a legacy of compassion that embodies the very spirit of the DAISY Award.