Jessica Curran
October 2025
Jessica
Curran
,
RN
Virginia Treatment Center for Children Clinic
Virginia Commonwealth University Health VCU Medical Center
Richmond
,
VA
United States
That's a testament to a wonderful nurse who has worked hard to make a real human connection to a teen girl who's been through a lot and refuses to give up.
This week, there was a misunderstanding that resulted in a stressful situation where part of the resolution took place through MyChart. When I picked my daughter up from school that day, I mentioned the messages to her in order to explain them, as she would also see them in her MyChart.
As I said, "If you look in your MyChart, you might see a message from Jessica," she immediately said, "isn't she the nurse at VTCC?" Immediately, with just a first name, my daughter knew who this person was, and that meant all the world to me.
You see, my daughter was once a very healthy young child who got very sick after COVID. We're from Wisconsin, and no one there could figure out how to help her, so she got sicker and sicker. As you can imagine, this took quite a toll on her mental health. We moved to Virginia, and she began seeing providers at VTCC the next spring.
She is now an incredibly healthy and thriving senior in high school, but there were some real bumps along the way, and times that she and I didn't always see eye-to-eye. I am so grateful to know that she has her counselor she can turn to for help, and also nurses she knows and trusts to advocate for and help her.
It's very challenging to move all the way across the country to a new place, but in a lot of ways, her medical team has become like an extended family and has helped her recover, grow, and thrive. Her nurses have been such an integral part of her team, and I feel they never get enough credit.
She knows how to access both her counselor and Jessica on her own, without me, so that she can ask for help or advocate for herself. That is a powerful gift to give a teen! It might not seem like much on a DAISY nomination form for a teen girl to just recognize a name, but this is a kid who has 30 providers on her care team list in a huge academic health system.
I barely got one name out, a very common first name, and my daughter, who has been through an incredible amount of "stuff" the last few years and has probably met hundreds of nurses, knew exactly whom I was talking about. That's a testament to a wonderful nurse who has worked hard to make a real human connection to a teen girl who's been through a lot and refuses to give up.
My daughter knows if she needs an advocate or help, she can turn to Jessica, and that's worth everything to me!
As I said, "If you look in your MyChart, you might see a message from Jessica," she immediately said, "isn't she the nurse at VTCC?" Immediately, with just a first name, my daughter knew who this person was, and that meant all the world to me.
You see, my daughter was once a very healthy young child who got very sick after COVID. We're from Wisconsin, and no one there could figure out how to help her, so she got sicker and sicker. As you can imagine, this took quite a toll on her mental health. We moved to Virginia, and she began seeing providers at VTCC the next spring.
She is now an incredibly healthy and thriving senior in high school, but there were some real bumps along the way, and times that she and I didn't always see eye-to-eye. I am so grateful to know that she has her counselor she can turn to for help, and also nurses she knows and trusts to advocate for and help her.
It's very challenging to move all the way across the country to a new place, but in a lot of ways, her medical team has become like an extended family and has helped her recover, grow, and thrive. Her nurses have been such an integral part of her team, and I feel they never get enough credit.
She knows how to access both her counselor and Jessica on her own, without me, so that she can ask for help or advocate for herself. That is a powerful gift to give a teen! It might not seem like much on a DAISY nomination form for a teen girl to just recognize a name, but this is a kid who has 30 providers on her care team list in a huge academic health system.
I barely got one name out, a very common first name, and my daughter, who has been through an incredible amount of "stuff" the last few years and has probably met hundreds of nurses, knew exactly whom I was talking about. That's a testament to a wonderful nurse who has worked hard to make a real human connection to a teen girl who's been through a lot and refuses to give up.
My daughter knows if she needs an advocate or help, she can turn to Jessica, and that's worth everything to me!