Aya Travel Nurse, Jacqueline, Gets Recognized With a DAISY Award!

Patience and compassion are two virtues that come naturally to travel nurse, Jacqueline. So, it’s no surprise our Aya team recently had the pleasure of awarding her with a DAISY Award after she was nominated for the attentive care and support she provided to her patient and their family.

In honor of her award, Jacqueline and her husband were invited to a celebratory dinner, which included a surprise guest — her recruiter, Ravi! The dinner gave Jacqueline and Ravi the chance to meet in person for the first time and celebrate her achievement.

Read more about Jacqueline’s generous care in the heartfelt nomination from her patient’s family below:

Our mother, Diane, is almost 87 and had emergency GI surgery in August. She wasn’t recovering well and spent five weeks in the hospital, mostly immobile and severely depressed. She came into the situation with a colostomy bag, then post-surgery had a PIC line inserted, was on oxygen and ultimately had a feeding tube surgically inserted. She was really in rough shape.

Jackie was her main day nurse and a lifeline to our family and the entire care team. My family and my mom can’t say enough about Jackie’s care on both a personal and professional level. Though none of us are nurses, we have to believe Jackie would be a role model for students and experienced practitioners alike.

Jackie was everything you want in a nurse; a terrific communicator, kind and caring, patient and accessible. With four adult sons involved in trying to get the best care for our mom, we know we can be a handful with many questions and differing personalities. Jackie dealt with all of us as individuals and most importantly our mom, she answered tons of questions about treatment, equipment, pharmaceuticals, nutrition, etc. She acted as a liaison with the physicians (surgeon, psychiatrist, GP, hospitalist and more), NPs and the entire care team. She held our mom’s hand, helped aides change her bedding and re-position her many times each day, explained patiently all procedures and calmed our mom constantly. And that was all while dealing with the four boys — no small feat! Her technical acumen was also obvious. With one of our brothers being a physician, Jackie went above and beyond the call of duty to complement the doctor-to-doctor communication that was occurring, and also took it upon herself to keep the other three brothers updated from a medical / treatment perspective. She attended to our mom properly and on time, coordinated our care team communication as mentioned and answered our questions with the appropriate level of medical knowledge balanced with our ability to consume (or not!) the technical jargon. We also observed Jackie’s interaction with her colleagues, fellow nurses, PA/NPs, aides, nutrition staff, PT and OT staffers, etc. and always saw the same level of care, consideration and communication she offered our mom. It’s clearly in her DNA to treat others with respect.

Our mom was discharged to a rehab hospital yesterday. She’s doing better, and so much of her positive outcome was driven by Jackie’s non-stop care and competent support. We bought a “thank you” gift card for Jackie and gave it to her on our mom’s last day. This was a problem because each time we approached her in the hallway to give it to her and verbally thank her, it caused tears all around. And it’s happening again as this note is being written. It took two approaches to finally give it to her and get the words out! Thank you, Jackie, on behalf of all of us boys and our mom, Diane. And yes, if she continues to recover, as you suggested, we’ll bring her back so she can dance in the hallway!

Diane is now out of the hospital and living independently again, in large part thanks to the care she received from Jacqueline and her entire medical team.

We’re proud to have talented nurses like Jacqueline on our team. The skillful care she provides to patients and their families embodies what the DAISY Award represents! If you know an Aya travel nurse who has played a significant role in you or your loved ones’ care, nominate them for a DAISY Award today!

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