Kelsey Flaherty
March 2025
Kelsey
Flaherty
,
RN
Cardiovascular Interventional Lab (CVIL)
The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Baltimore
,
MD
United States
She quickly started brainstorming and making thoughtful and tactful suggestions for new techniques to obtain hemostasis. She also one by one rotated through the room, stepping into multiple roles to allow each person who had been a part of the case to step out and break scrub/take off our protective lead aprons, which were feeling quite heavy after a long day.
Kelsey is a little different than other nurses. She stands out in so many ways that it’s hard to figure out where to start. However, I chose to nominate her for a DAISY Award for a particular interaction that I experienced with her recently.
I am a physician assistant who works in the cardiac catheterization laboratory, and on this day in particular, we were replacing a new pulmonary valve in a 15-year-old little girl. We do this via a transcatheter approach, meaning we poke a hole into and get access to her heart through her femoral vein and artery. At the end of each case, we have to take our sheaths out of the femoral vessels and use a special tool to tie them closed because they are large blood vessels and take a long time to stop bleeding.
However, on this particular day, the hemostasis tool did not work properly. This means that it was very difficult for our team to get the young patient’s leg to stop bleeding. Our team had already been in the catheterization laboratory for several hours since we had multiple cases that day and we were exhausted. Our day had also run late and it was already around 8:00 p.m.
Kelsey serves as the lead clinical nurse in the cardiac catheterization lab. At the end of our case, she came into our room to check on how we were doing. She noticed that our team was exhausted and had spent over an hour trying to obtain hemostasis of our patient’s femoral access site. Immediately, she took action.
She quickly started brainstorming and making thoughtful and tactful suggestions for new techniques to obtain hemostasis. She also one by one rotated through the room, stepping into multiple roles to allow each person who had been a part of the case to step out and break scrub/take off our protective lead aprons, which were feeling quite heavy after a long day. She spoke to each of us with respect and enough motivational energy to keep going and trying new techniques to get control of the bleeding.
Ultimately, she suggested using a device that our team is unfamiliar with called a “FemStop.” This is a device that applies continuous, focused pressure to a particular area in order to stop it from bleeding. We immediately expressed concern over being unfamiliar with the device, but Kelsey stated, “It’s ok, I’m very familiar with it and I will help you through every step.” She then put gloves on and immediately started directing the room of about ten people in order to safely apply this device to the patient’s leg. And thankfully, it worked! We could all breathe a sigh of relief.
However, her help did not stop there. She then realized that our pediatric PACU (who was going to be recovering this patient from her surgical procedure) was unfamiliar with this particular device. So, to ask them to accept a patient for post-operative care with an unfamiliar device is quite a large request. However, for a case that Kelsey was not even assigned to cover, she vowed to continue care for the patient until she was safely tucked into the PACU and the entire nursing team felt comfortable caring for the unfamiliar device.
Kelsey accompanied the patient down to the PACU and then calmed the nerves of the nursing team by doing a mini in-service at the bedside of the patient to help them understand the post-operative protocol. She also circled back to check on the patient multiple times over the course of the next two hours.
The nursing staff verbally and repeatedly thanked Kelsey over and over, stating that they often feel they are left with new or unfamiliar surgical devices, but that no one ever goes to the lengths or details that Kelsey did to ensure that they felt comfortable enough to safely care for the patient.
Additionally, I later found out that Kelsey ended up staying at work two hours past her shift that night because she had to finish entering timesheets for her staff. That was what she was originally planning on doing with her evening, but when she saw that our team needed help, she put her own needs and responsibilities aside to help both her team and the patient. This is why we are so grateful for her.
Nurses like Kelsey are the definition of great nursing care. She is exceptionally selfless and cares for every patient as if they were her own family member. She also spreads so much support and motivation amongst her coworkers as well. In fact, she has an entire set-up in her office where she spends her own money to buy snacks, treats, and prizes so that she can add a little sunshine to everyone’s day. For each holiday and celebratory day (i.e., National Nurses Week or National Radiology Tech Week), she thinks of a theme and individually celebrates each person on her team.
She is truly a shining star amongst our nursing staff, and we are so lucky to have her as an example for everyone to emulate. I strive to be more like Kelsey a little bit more each day. She is overall a wonderful and significantly important part of our success and efficiency as a catheterization lab, and we would be lost without her. And I truly believe that she so very much deserves the recognition that so humbly comes along with this award.
I am a physician assistant who works in the cardiac catheterization laboratory, and on this day in particular, we were replacing a new pulmonary valve in a 15-year-old little girl. We do this via a transcatheter approach, meaning we poke a hole into and get access to her heart through her femoral vein and artery. At the end of each case, we have to take our sheaths out of the femoral vessels and use a special tool to tie them closed because they are large blood vessels and take a long time to stop bleeding.
However, on this particular day, the hemostasis tool did not work properly. This means that it was very difficult for our team to get the young patient’s leg to stop bleeding. Our team had already been in the catheterization laboratory for several hours since we had multiple cases that day and we were exhausted. Our day had also run late and it was already around 8:00 p.m.
Kelsey serves as the lead clinical nurse in the cardiac catheterization lab. At the end of our case, she came into our room to check on how we were doing. She noticed that our team was exhausted and had spent over an hour trying to obtain hemostasis of our patient’s femoral access site. Immediately, she took action.
She quickly started brainstorming and making thoughtful and tactful suggestions for new techniques to obtain hemostasis. She also one by one rotated through the room, stepping into multiple roles to allow each person who had been a part of the case to step out and break scrub/take off our protective lead aprons, which were feeling quite heavy after a long day. She spoke to each of us with respect and enough motivational energy to keep going and trying new techniques to get control of the bleeding.
Ultimately, she suggested using a device that our team is unfamiliar with called a “FemStop.” This is a device that applies continuous, focused pressure to a particular area in order to stop it from bleeding. We immediately expressed concern over being unfamiliar with the device, but Kelsey stated, “It’s ok, I’m very familiar with it and I will help you through every step.” She then put gloves on and immediately started directing the room of about ten people in order to safely apply this device to the patient’s leg. And thankfully, it worked! We could all breathe a sigh of relief.
However, her help did not stop there. She then realized that our pediatric PACU (who was going to be recovering this patient from her surgical procedure) was unfamiliar with this particular device. So, to ask them to accept a patient for post-operative care with an unfamiliar device is quite a large request. However, for a case that Kelsey was not even assigned to cover, she vowed to continue care for the patient until she was safely tucked into the PACU and the entire nursing team felt comfortable caring for the unfamiliar device.
Kelsey accompanied the patient down to the PACU and then calmed the nerves of the nursing team by doing a mini in-service at the bedside of the patient to help them understand the post-operative protocol. She also circled back to check on the patient multiple times over the course of the next two hours.
The nursing staff verbally and repeatedly thanked Kelsey over and over, stating that they often feel they are left with new or unfamiliar surgical devices, but that no one ever goes to the lengths or details that Kelsey did to ensure that they felt comfortable enough to safely care for the patient.
Additionally, I later found out that Kelsey ended up staying at work two hours past her shift that night because she had to finish entering timesheets for her staff. That was what she was originally planning on doing with her evening, but when she saw that our team needed help, she put her own needs and responsibilities aside to help both her team and the patient. This is why we are so grateful for her.
Nurses like Kelsey are the definition of great nursing care. She is exceptionally selfless and cares for every patient as if they were her own family member. She also spreads so much support and motivation amongst her coworkers as well. In fact, she has an entire set-up in her office where she spends her own money to buy snacks, treats, and prizes so that she can add a little sunshine to everyone’s day. For each holiday and celebratory day (i.e., National Nurses Week or National Radiology Tech Week), she thinks of a theme and individually celebrates each person on her team.
She is truly a shining star amongst our nursing staff, and we are so lucky to have her as an example for everyone to emulate. I strive to be more like Kelsey a little bit more each day. She is overall a wonderful and significantly important part of our success and efficiency as a catheterization lab, and we would be lost without her. And I truly believe that she so very much deserves the recognition that so humbly comes along with this award.