August 2017
Noel
Padilla
,
RN, BSN, CPN
Medical Unit
Seattle Children's
Seattle
,
WA
United States

 

 

 

Noel consistently went above and beyond in-patient care, advocating for our son and our family, and working to ensure a healthy future for our son. Sadly, our son has a complex medical history, and he's been hospitalized for over half of his first year of life. We've spent the better part of six months hospitalized, with the last five weeks spent at Seattle Children's after a medical evacuation from Boise. Noel immediately made us feel welcome and secure in a new, large, anonymous hospital. He explained the discrepancies between our previous setting and Seattle Children's. Noel ensured we were properly acclimated to his new care regiment and the new providers. He infused warmth and personality into every interaction. Noel advocated for our son to stay for an additional night. There was some confusion regarding discharge, and he astutely assessed our family situation and ascertained that D should be granted an additional night. Because Noel advocated that D stay an additional night, it prevented him from sleeping on blankets and a wood floor, and allowed for additional monitoring of his many seizure types. It also allowed my husband time to arrive from the airport to receive home care instructions, including tube feeds, multiple medications, sleep regiments, and transport logistics. Noel spent over two hours instructing both of us how to adequately care for our son in our home. He also went above and beyond, contacting local car rental agencies for transportation, arranging a car seat to be delivered from family life, and had a car seat study completed to ensure our son was breathing properly in his new car seat. He spoke with the airline about their frequent flier programs and airline miles for necessary transport to and from Boise in the future.
I've never had a nurse who is a thorough as Noel. Noel is compassionate, intelligent, articulate, and the very definition of the best practices in nursing. He genuinely cares about his patients and their families, and his work ethic is beyond reproach. Noel loves his patients and advocates intelligently for them. We are so thankful that we had the chance to have Noel as D's nurse and our friend for nearly six weeks. He truly set the standard that we will measure all other nurses by in the future. We'll be watching to see all of his success in the future.