Jayra Olivas
February 2022
Jayra
Olivas
,
BSN, CPAN
Pre-Op
Banner Thunderbird Medical Center
Glendale
,
AZ
United States

 

 

 

I was so grateful for Jayra's exemplary nursing skills, her compassion, her empathy, and her thorough care.
I woke up in the morning with horrible pain in my knee and I couldn't walk. I have been a physician at BTMC for 30 years and I asked my wife to drive me to the emergency department. The staff worked me up and discovered that I had a septic knee in the joint that I had a prior total joint replacement four years earlier. I was scheduled for emergency surgery that evening. When I arrived in pre-op I met a nurse named Jayra. She was extremely attentive to me and also very insightful. She saw from my history that I'm a Christian and she is also a Christian. After being seen by my surgeon and anesthesiologist, she pulled the privacy curtain and asked me if it would be okay if she prayed for me. She had accurately perceived how anxious I was even though I was trying to hide it. I was overjoyed that she had asked if she could pray with me, and asked her to please pray. Jayra put one hand on my knee and held my hands with her other hand, and she prayed the most beautiful prayer for me and specifically prayed that I would not be anxious about the surgery. Minutes later I was whisked off to the operating room. I was trained that physicians and nurses should take care of the whole person (body, mind, spirit) and not just the body. Jayra exhibited excellent nursing skills and judgment and was completely unintimidated by the fact that I was a physician on staff. I was so grateful for her exemplary nursing skills, her compassion, her empathy, and her thorough care. As I reflect back on my experience, from the ER all the way through discharge several days later, I received excellent care from so many doctors, nurses, and staff, but the one person who really stood out from everyone else was the compassionate care I received from Jayra.