I’ve precepted many nurses, and I know that on a med-surg floor, it is easy to become task-oriented with the pressures of time and task lists driving your every move. Especially as a new nurse, coming into our world is daunting, and prioritizing everything takes time to learn. It so often becomes the role in which we fall, forgetting why we went into patient care in the first place, feeling the weight of inadequacy heavily on our backs. But Alex has the kind of compassion that sometimes gets snuffed out in the workflow, that fresh and fervent heart that shapes her routine, and she takes the kind of time with her patients that makes each one feel seen, heard, and validated. An example that was the first of many: when I knew she was going to be an amazing nurse, is when we had a patient that was at the end of life, had high anxiety, low oxygen reserve, and needed a lot of reassurance throughout the day to focus on slowing down their breathing to keep oxygen saturations up. Not only once but multiple times that day, I saw her stop what she was doing, get down on her knees, and breathe with that patient. She spoke words of encouragement, compassion, and love to that patient. She kept him calm, reassured, and feeling safe in his last days of life. She deeply felt his fear and heart in his last moments, and she did not let her to-do list get in the way of that matter, and I know she carried it with her long after he was gone. Alex has continued to show that kind of love and compassion to each and every one of her patients and has since shifted into a night shift role in order to have time to love on all of her patients and get her work done effectively. Her steadfast love of other humans is the standard to which we should all set ourselves daily. Compassion is something that cannot be taught, and when we have a nurse like Alex come along who perfectly embodies our values of respect, integrity, compassion, and safety, their praises should be sung from the mountaintops. I am a better nurse for working alongside people like Alex, and I know her patients are better, too.