Carlie has been a nurse on 3 Park for only a few months and already embodies everything that a DAISY nurse should be.

She regularly seeks out opportunities to learn and grow in nursing knowledge. She is a strong patient advocate, and on multiple occasions has identified subtle changes in patient conditions and escalated her concerns to ensure her patients get the care they need. She asks thoughtful questions not only to strengthen her knowledge but to ensure she is providing the safest and highest quality care possible.

Beyond her willingness to learn and grow, she brings extraordinary compassion to the bedside. One example of this, among many, is a patient she recently cared for with a new cancer diagnosis that suddenly caused him to become paralyzed. He was also partially blind and had difficulty seeing the wall-mounted TV. Largely confined to a bed or chair, his family provided a small DVD player for him to put on the bedside table to keep his spirits up during his lengthy hospital stay. The patient expressed that he was glad to have the DVD player but had quickly gone through all of his DVDs. On her day off, without being asked, she went out of her way to buy new movies for the patient along with his favorite chocolate (he loves Hershey’s!) so that he could enjoy watching something up close during his difficult and long hospital stay.

Holistic care should be a goal of a nurse, and Carlie truly embodies this. As a newer nurse, she often jokes that this attentiveness is only because she doesn't want to make a mistake. What she doesn't realize is that the kind of care, compassion, and initiative she shows her patients can’t be taught. Carlie truly deserves this Award!