Colin Western
August 2021
Colin
Western
,
RN
Acute Psychiatric Services
Hennepin Healthcare
Minneapolis
,
MN
United States
Colin has some of the best listening skills I've seen, as he truly listens. Patients know when this is happening and it helps them feel respected to be heard.
He worked Inpatient Psychiatry for about a decade but has recently moved to Acute Psychiatric Services to continue learning. This nurse always brings a warm and welcoming attitude to work. He is a great team player and brings the best out of each employee which has a direct impact on patient care. He is at his best with 1 on 1 conversations with our patients. He can help figure out what the patient needs even if it may be difficult for them to articulate that themselves. I have seen many extraordinary interactions with Colin and our patients. Colin brings calmness wherever he works. He often works in our intensive care psych unit, which is anything but calm. He is an example to his patients on how to deal with stressful and difficult situations. He has some of the best listening skills I've seen, as he truly listens. Patients know when this is happening and it helps them feel respected to be heard. He often does triage and you need to be a creative and flexible nurse to do this job. Colin is all of these. He can come up with creative solutions to hard situations. He can often provide a fresh perspective to an existing problem. But there is also a fun side to Colin. To be able to work in psychiatry at HHS you need this. He organizes "Lodge Nite", where many different kinds of food are brought; often meats, spicy and stinky and he is famous for his mushroom dishes and deep-fried crickets. Something for us to look forward to.