My son was admitted 22 days ago and is still in the acute care unit. Laura has been my son’s nurse for at least 7 of the nights we have stayed in the hospital. It is hard to put into words the exceptional nursing care Laura has provided my son, but the PETALS criteria clearly show that Laura's nursing skills far exceed the established standards.

Laura’s PASSIONATE and attentive nursing care has overflowed with compassion for my son throughout his painful and difficult recovery from the emergency surgery he has endured. Moved by sincere EMPATHY, Laura has passionately and proactively seized every opportunity to make him feel comfortable and encouraged. Laura is faithfully quick to respond to call buttons and has never been late in providing my son with his much-needed and scheduled meds.

Laura doesn’t hesitate to proactively reach out to doctors when needed to try and bring greater comfort and pain relief to my son or to swiftly address health concerns whenever issues arise. Laura is one of two nurses during our stay in which I have felt comfortable enough leaving my son's bedside to run home for a few hours to “refresh” and check on my other children at home. It is very hard to see your child in pain and struggling with extremely unpleasant setbacks in his recovery, yet I know I can TRUST Laura to respond quickly to his call when I am not at the hospital and make sure he is well cared for.

I greatly ADMIRE Laura’s consistently kind, patient, and calm bedside manner, strong attention to detail, as well as her swift response to his needs and punctual adherence to his schedule. I don’t know how she does it, but it seems like she must have a timer set for each of her patient’s scheduled meds. As I already stated, she has never been late to administer his medicine, and she must set a timer for his numerous IV boluses as she arrives back to his room before the IV alarm signaling the bolus completion has had a chance to go off.

Laura has consistently gone above and beyond on each shift to attend to my son's nursing care. For example, one night he was struggling horribly from the effects of an improperly placed NG tube. While the NG tube placement had been corrected, the tube kept clogging, causing repetitive bouts of nausea and vomiting if not properly draining. Vomiting and choking on vomit is not only unpleasant, but horribly painful when one is recovering from intestinal surgery as my son has been. That night Laura took the initiative to faithfully come in every half hour to flush his NG tube to make sure he was able to rest and as comfortably as possible without further incidents of nausea and vomiting.

I know Laura is supposed to get a much-needed lunch break, but I would hazard to guess she did not take one that night. Laura doesn’t wait for call buttons to sound; instead, she proactively attends to the needs of her patients and thoughtfully cares for each one as if they were her only patient and a member of her own family. Having stayed with my son now for over three weeks, I have had a great opportunity to observe his nursing care, and it is clear to me that Laura has a genuine LOVE for her patients and SELFLESSLY provides the very best of nursing care that far exceeds expectations and baseline professional standards.