Working in healthcare means being present for the most significant milestones in people’s lives, from birth to the end of life. It isn’t always an easy experience, but the best nurses, like Shannon Flood, RN, of Peninsula Regional Medical Center’s Intensive Care Unit, have the compassion it takes to get families through tough times. For her caring, she has earned the Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nurses.
Flood was caring for a critically ill patient in the ICU. The patient’s wife didn’t have a cell phone and lived two hours away. Flood brought in a prepaid phone of her own for the wife in order to keep her up to date on the patient’s very serious condition.
When the wife made the decision to allow her husband to pass, Flood realized how hard it was for her. A fellow nurse who nominated Flood for the award wrote, “I observed Shannon, who as the patient’s heart slowed down, took the wife by the hand with the utmost compassion, and gently led her to him, and placed her hand in her husband’s hand as he took his final breath.
“The family expressed how grateful they were for Shannon’s compassion and for providing them with so many opportunities, from the essential ability to communicate with the hospital while he was in critical condition to most importantly ensuring that he had a dignified death with his wife holding his hand as he left this world.”
For making such a difference in the lives she touches, Flood was honored with the Daisy Award in a ceremony before her colleagues. She received a certificate commending her for being an extraordinary nurse. The certificate reads: “In deep appreciation of all you do, who you are, and the incredibly meaningful difference you make in the lives of so many people.” She was also presented with fresh flowers on behalf of the Peninsula Regional Medical staff, and a sculpture called A Healer’s Touch, hand-carved by artists of the Shona Tribe in Zimbabwe. To nominate an exceptional nurse, visit www.peninsula.org/DaisyAward and share a story.
The not-for-profit DAISY Foundation is based in Glen Ellen, CA, and was established by family members in memory of J. Patrick Barnes. Patrick died at the age of 33 in late 1999 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little-known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. The care Patrick and his family received from nurses while he was ill inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.
President and Co-Founder of The DAISY Foundation Bonnie Barnes said, “When Patrick was critically ill, our family experienced firsthand the remarkable skill and care nurses provide patients every day and night. Yet these unsung heroes are seldom recognized for the super-human work they do. The kind of work the nurses at PRMC are called on to do every day epitomizes the purpose of The DAISY Award.”
