Stefanie Levesque
April 2015
Stefanie
Levesque
,
RN, BSN
Heart & Vascular
Yale New Haven Hospital
New Haven
,
CT
United States

 

 

 

During the last three years that I have worked with Stefanie, I have come to see her as a model of compassionate care, taking the time to address patient and family needs. When I was brand new to the floor I worked an overnight shift with Stefanie. She had a patient who had a stroke history and was not able to verbally communicate. While she was re-positioning the patient with the PCA the patient coded and after about 2 hours was pronounced deceased. Stephanie stayed with the patient during the code as the nurse and advocate, we found out that the patient had children but that they were estranged and were not coming to say their goodbyes. Stefanie did the Brady care and demonstrated the amount of compassion anyone would want for their family member even though the patient and her family would never know.

...

Family members and patients see that Stefanie is a nurse that will advocate for them to the staff. Whenever I pick-up one of Stefanie's patients they are always impressed and speak highly of her nursing knowledge and skills. Stefanie is also bilingual and speaks both English and Italian. Whenever we have Italian speaking patients on the unit Stefanie goes out of her way to talk to them in Italian and they always seem comforted to have someone they can have a conversation with without using an interpreter. This is just one way that Stefanie goes out of her way to help patients feel connected more at home on our unit.

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A few months ago we had a patient pass away on the unit. He had been on the floor for over a week and he and his family were well known to the staff. Although he was sick, his passing was not expected. Stefanie was his nurse that day and during the code the family expressed that they believed the patient would want the code stopped and would not have wanted all they extraordinary measures being done during the code. Knowing the patient and family, Stefanie was able to advocate to the team and help the patient to have a more dignified passing.

...

Stefanie She is a true professional and puts patient care above all else. Her number one priority is the well-being of her patients, this is clear to fellow nurses and patients' family members after seeing Stefanie at work on the unit.