Rachel Cress, MSN, RN

I would like to nominate Rachel for the Extraordinary Nurse Educator DAISY because, since she has come to Cook’s as the PICU Educator, she has gone above and beyond. Rachel has made the time to get to know the staff and build personal connections with them. She reaches out to them when they have had tough patient assignments, she helps them through rough orientation assignments.

Rachel is supportive of staff learning and mastery of all PICU modalities. She has made great relationships with vendors and has them help with training classes. She is flexible with her schedule by coming in early for evaluations or staying late to help in the unit.

Rachel spends time rounding with all the staff and helps with our safety rounds, bathes, sitting for lunches, and basically whatever our staff needs. Rachel has great communication and never hesitates to reach out to leadership if she is having trouble getting staff to respond for class schedules.

Rachel really cares about our patient population and has an amazing drive to make sure our staff is able to care for each patient confidently. Rachel has tackled many projects in the PICU, working alongside leadership and our physicians. If Rachel says she will take care of something I know it will get done. Rachel has really learned our team and fits right in!

Rachel. I feel like her name is beginning to be synonymous with exceptional, but until it is for everyone outside our unit, I shall explain why. She started her journey as an educator in an extremely exacting unit, with plenty of one-offs, caveats, and low-volume yet high-acuity skills. Oh, and hundreds of strong personalities with high expectations.

She began empathetically and with grace, acknowledging that this job was going to be demanding, but she has risen above expectations. She knew that staff really needed to see her as a presence on the unit, and she made that priority number one. She has really made the effort to get to know her staff, and that is imperative to making an impact on the unit. They now know her and feel comfortable (maybe too comfortable) giving her any feedback, positive and constructive.

Not only has she really put an effort into fostering strong relationships with bedside staff, but she is also invested in growing her leadership team. One of many examples of this – She joined up with a manager to get us all on board to further our own professional growth by starting a book club!

I could expound on her virtues until I am blue in the face (and it still would likely not be enough), but to summarize why I think she deserves to be recognized beyond our unit:

1) She is such a happy presence. Even if we are discussing something unpleasant, she is consistently a known positive entity.
2) Creativity comes so naturally to her. I am envious of her skills, but I know she is happy to be my go-to when I may have the content, but I know if it’s not “pretty,” no one will read it!
3) Where there are so many people hesitant to try new things, especially when there’s a history of “we’ve already tried something like that,” Rachel is (refreshingly) flexible and willing to try anything!
4) She’s also just got the know-how. She came with a great knowledge base, and she just continues to grow it – in every direction – as a bedside nurse, as an educator, as a peer. And she doesn’t shy away from just jumping in to help!

She was waling into the unit a little early for an eval, noticed there might be a need for help in a procedure, and walked over and just started helping – something every single staff, from physician to PCT, notices and appreciates.

I’m sure that there are many people deserving of this award, but to give her the formal recognition our team tries to give her in every interaction would just be the icing on the cake, especially knowing that she doesn’t need the recognition and will continue to excel every day with or without that acknowledgment.