Caitlyn Smith
March 2025
Caitlyn
Smith
,
BS, RN
Level 8 -Medical
Children's Hospital Colorado
Aurora
,
CO
United States
Caitlyn was by our side the whole time, pushing the doctors and holding them accountable when they wanted to wait until morning and pass the issue to the day team.
Caitlyn has been outstanding. She has looked after our son for years during multiple stays. Our son has complex medical conditions with a very rare gene mutation that stumps everyone. This stay, we have been here for over four months. Every time she is here, she tries to help our son. She has advocated for him with doctors, respiratory therapists, floor management, her manager, and other nurses. The situations have been too numerous to account for. The one that stands out is the night his breathing was labored, and his O2 stats were dropping. The night doctor was not concerned, “he was stable. " Multiple calls to the team were made, and an intervention from the PICU was almost called when the night doctor finally ordered a chest X-ray because of Caitlyn’s insistence. The X-ray showed significant issues with his right lung. He was taken to CT as a STAT case. The CT showed an almost complete collapse of his right lung. Caitlyn was by our side the whole time, pushing the doctors and holding them accountable when they wanted to wait until morning and pass the issue to the day team. The IR team said it was one of the most significant collapses they had seen. She knows our son well and what makes him tick, including quirks in his presentation and when something isn’t quite right. She has gone above and beyond with clarifications, explanations, giving us hugs and words of encouragement, and high fives for our son during this stay of over four months. She is the best.