Kait's personality truly shines when she is in her role as a bedside nurse on the neuroscience unit at MCE. While she may be a new nurse, you would never be able to tell from the grace and compassion she shows to all of her patients. Even when Kait is under an immense amount of pressure to care for many acutely ill stroke and neurological patients, she spends the extra time with each patient to ensure they receive quality care and feel safe. A recent example of this was a young Muslim woman whose primary language was Oromo. The patient had to undergo invasive spinal surgery for tumor removal. During her postoperative period on the neuroscience floor, Kait took care of her. As her bedside nurse, Kait spent the extra time needed to overcome the language barrier as well as to build a safe, trusting relationship with the patient. The patient knew she was Kait's only focus when caring for her. This trust allowed Kait to encourage the patient to push herself farther in the recovery process than the patient thought was possible. Kait's kind and caring nature also allowed the patient's family to inherently know that Kait had their family member's best interest at heart. Kait's patience with her allowed the patient to heal more quickly and gave the family peace of mind that when Kait was there, no harm would come to their family member.
This is only one specific example of Kait's ability to connect with her patients. There have been countless times when Kait goes the extra mile to educate family members, discuss concerns of the patient and/or family, and takes time to listen to those for whom she cares. She does all of this with a smile and politeness. Kait is an excellent clinician. She works extremely hard to ensure her patients receive top-quality care during her shifts. Each time Kait has one of my patients, I am assured that no issue will be overlooked. She begins her shift combing over patients' charts to get the entire story so she can ask the appropriate questions of other clinicians. This also allows her to answer questions that the patient and family may have; it also makes her well versed in her patient's situation so she can communicate concisely and accurately with other clinicians.
Kait is attentive and interactive during the 5th floor multidisciplinary rounds. She closely listens to what each department has to say about her patients and gives feedback about the best way to care for them while bringing her patients closer to their discharge goal. She is not afraid to give her opinion in a caring way about what she feels may be the best plan of care for her patients. Her peers and other clinicians respect what she has to say and frequently incorporate her suggestions into the patient's plan of care.
She has a passion for furthering her education in order to give her patient the highest quality of care. She is pursuing education to become a progressive care unit trained nurse which will give her the ability to safely care for critically ill patients.