We had a young patient come in for a colonoscopy whose urine pregnancy sample came back with a positive result. The nurse pre-opping this patient was unsure how to handle the situation and consulted this senior nurse on our unit who was available at the time for guidance on how to proceed.

Because the charge was tied up with another task at the time, Katherine stepped in and discussed the situation with our anesthesiologist and endoscopist. She then spent extensive time with the young lady, informing her of her positive pregnancy test, gathering more information about her history to gauge the likelihood of a true vs. false positive, and then brought all that information back to the team.

In this discussion, she fiercely advocated for the patient to see if there was a way for her to still safely get her procedure done, as the patient had several comorbidities and did not want to have to go through the prep process again if not absolutely required. The patient was very overwhelmed by the information, clearly not expecting the results to be positive, and  Katherine was by her side the entire time she was processing the news. All of this occurred while Katherine was also managing other patients in her recovery assignment for the day.

The procedure was ultimately cancelled for safety and conflicting data reasons, but Katherine spent additional time discussing next steps with the patient and recommended following up in the ER for further, more efficient evaluation. The patient thanked her extensively, and after observing the entire situation, I do not think there was a better nurse on our unit to handle this situation than Katherine. She demonstrated the pillars of patient advocacy and patient-centered care during this situation.