Award Type: DAISY Nurse Leader Award

Please help us congratulate Emily Garcia as 4th Quarter 2020 DAISY Nurse Leader!

We recently had a nurse whose brother-in-law passed away leaving a wife and two small children behind. This situation was hard on the employee, as she is the only medical professional in her family and her sister relied on her heavily during the whole ordeal. Emily immediately jumped into action to aide this family in their time of need. First, she made accommodations to assist in scheduling. On many occasions, she removed the employee from the schedule at a moment’s notice so that she could be there for her sister. She called or texted the employee daily to ensure she was holding up ok. When he did end up passing away, Emily’s first instinct was to be there for the family. Realizing that the employee’s nieces and sister lost a father and a husband so close to the holidays, Emily arranged to have the unit sponsor the children for Christmas. She gathered a list of items that the children liked from the employee and engaged the chair of the unit rewards and recognition committee to raise funds in order to buy presents for these children. Unfortunately, this family will never get their loved one back, but Emily made sure to let them know they are thought of and hopefully that makes this holiday a little easier on them. 2020 has been a challenging year but small acts of kindness like what Emily has done make us grateful for the unity and sense of community that has come out of this horrible pandemic. This is just one example of the many courageous acts Emily has performed throughout the year. She is more deserving of recognition than anyone I know. Thank you Emily, for always thinking with your heart and putting the needs of others first.

We are proud to honor Emily Garcia, MSN, RN, CCRN as our 4th Quarter 2020 DAISY Nurse Leader!

Amanda Venable has a passion for the care of critically ill patients. Her philosophy of nursing should be modeled by us all. She is a leader in critical care for the entire hospital, not just the units she serves. Other leaders seek out Amanda for advice and discernment of challenging situations. I have never seen Amanda refuse to help anyone; there is no task too menial for her. She is truly a servant leader. Her passion for evidence-based practice is unparalleled. Over 10 years ago, when the publication of evidence of rapid response teams began, Amanda Venable decided our organization could benefit from deployment of a team such as this and singlehandedly began our UMC Rapid Response Team to aid in the rescue of patients throughout our hospital. At the beginning of this implementation, she took on the role herself countless times to make sure we had coverage 24 hours per day, 365 days a year until our team was fully established. She is a published researcher and has presented nationally. As far as I can remember, she works every Christmas day, so our nurses know they are supported and appreciated on holidays. She provides career advancement counseling to all staff to ensure we all achieve our dreams; oftentimes, this means losing a valuable staff member to advancing roles in nursing. Many leaders in this organization currently were previous direct reports of Amanda. The strong relationship between physicians and nursing staff evident in her units is due to Amanda’s leadership with the physician team that fosters mutual respect. Others in the organization know that her involvement in committees, collaborations, projects, and implementations is the key to success. She has written nominations for many of her nurses for various awards over the years, and they have successfully achieved much due to her efforts. The success of her team is more important to Amanda than her success.

We are proud to honor Amanda Venable, MSN, RN, CCRN as our 1st Quarter 2020 DAISY Nurse Leader!