Alyssa Ward, RN

Alyssa Ward always goes above and beyond for our babies and our team. She is an outstanding advocate, critical thinker, hard worker, and someone whom I can always rely on. She cares about the safety and well-being of our whole unit and all of our babies. On this particular night, she came in when she was not scheduled after seeing messages of desperate need for help. As charge, I already had one of our most critical babies and also would have to attend deliveries and be a resource to everyone in the unit. Before 10 pm, we discovered one of our transition babies would need to be intubated and would be getting a chest tube as well as needing lines placed. The critical nature of this admission was a challenge, being already short-staffed with multiple 1:1 babies. She recognized the need, and she came for the good of the unit and ultimately the good of the babies. She helped the primary nurse with chest tube setup, labs, central line placement, and even placed a PAL when umbilical artery access was not able to be achieved.

Following this, we found out that we would be getting 2 more babies, and she helped with admissions, deliveries, arterial sticks, labs, IVs, parent education, and everything in between. The night was extremely busy all the way through, and she stayed through it all, despite missing sleep and having to be back the following nights. It might seem like just a helping hand at the time, but thinking about the ‘why’ behind the helping hand is the significance. Our babies were safer for having Alyssa with us because she can (and does) literally do it all!