By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — Sheila Lange, an RN in Pre & Post Op, was awarded the DAISY Award for the exceptional patience and care she shows to the patience in her care.

The hospital collects nominations for a total of six months from co-workers, family members, and patients and their friends and family before blinding them or any descriptors of who the nurse is and presenting them to a board to select a winner based off the information the nominator provided.

“This is given to honor my colleagues and nurses that go above and beyond and provide extraordinary care,” Kim Freeman, vice president of Patient Care Services & Chief Nursing Officer said.

Lange is the true definition of above and beyond, extraordinary. Her patient’s family felt the need to make her light known, as they nominated her for the award for the patience and knowledge she bestowed upon the patient and their family during a difficult time.

“Lang cared for my mom prior to and after her knee surgery. My dad accompanied my mom, and both my parents have no medical understanding or background,” the nominator wrote. “There was a ton of anxiety from both of my parents knowing I was unable to be present the day of her surgery.”

It continued to say Lange was beyond patient with their mother and father. She took amazing care of not only the patient, but provided the father with emotional comfort as well.

“After the procedure, my mom and dad mentioned multiple times how outstanding Lange was. Knowing them it was clear to me she was very impressionable to them in a good manner. She goes above and beyond what it means to be a DAISY nominee, and Lange demonstrates the caring and empathetic compassion nurses should strive to have. My family and I are forever grateful for her.”

Lange was stunned stating she doesn’t know what to say. For her, this award was never expected because she was just doing her job. She has been with Wayne HealthCare for almost 10 years, and being a nurse has always been a dream of hers.

“When I was young, back in the Philippines, we always played patient, nurse things, so I always wanted to be an RN,” Lange said. “Back in the Philippines, I had a psychology degree, and when I moved into the states I then told my husband I wanted to go back to school to become an RN.”

She said she is grateful to be able to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming an RN and helping patients the way she does. She has friends and family back home who are nurses, and they inspired her to be attentive to care in the caring way she is today.

“I love it. I have relatives back home that went to a nursing program who are very caring, so I thought why don’t I too pursue that degree and care,” Lange said.

Lange wants to thank the family for their nomination saying she is extremely grateful, and she humbly said “she does not deserve it because she is just doing her job” by taking care of the patients and educating those who don’t have any background in the healthcare system.

“I’m pretty much am just advocating for them, educating them, and making sure they get proper care and education before they go home,” Lange said. “I appreciate whoever nominated me. I really am appreciative of what they did.”

Freeman says Wayne HealthCare is honored to give Lange the DAISY award during Nurses’ Week because she is a fantastic nurse who puts the patient first: kind, caring, compassionate.

“Her nomination really spoke to the difference that she made in her patient’s surgical experience, and how she made them feel,” Freeman said.

Freeman said most of the nominations they receive are from patients’ family members and it “really validates the impact” that the nurses have on the patient and their families while in their care. Lange will receive a certificate, a pin, a healer’s touch sculpture, a bouquet of daisies, continued educational opportunities, cinnamon roles to be shared, and cookies. The hospital also provides a personal cake to the recipient to be able to bring home and share with their family later.

Wayne HealthCare in Greenville is honored to be able to award the Daisy Award every six months. This award was founded in 1999 when Patrick Barnes, 33, was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and he was hospitalized for eight weeks.

During those weeks, they experienced the best of nursing. While they expected great clinical care, they did not expect the incredible kindness and compassion shown to Barnes and them every day, even when Pat was completely sedated. It eased their minds, and the nurses’ sensitivity to the situation made a great difference in the hospital experience. The nurses helped the family through the darkest hours of their lives with soft voices of comfort and strong, loving hugs.

“After Pat died, the Barnes family knew they wanted to honor him, to somehow turn their grief into something that would help fill the giant hole in their hearts that Barne’s passing had left,” Freeman said.

The family kept coming back to conversations about his nurses, and that’s when they decided to say “Thank You” for the gifts nurses give their patients and families every day, just as they had experienced.

Barne’s wife, Tena, developed the acronym DAISY, which stands for Diseases Attacking the Immune System, and The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses began at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance at the University of Washington Medical Center, where Patrick had been a patient.

It was the first program of its kind to give patients, families, and co-workers a way to express their gratitude to nurses for what they became nurses to do – provide compassionate care to patients and their families. Since then, The DAISY Award has become a strategic tool for nurse recruitment, retention, and resilience that has been adopted by thousands of healthcare organizations and schools of nursing in the U.S. and around the world.

To learn more about the DAISY Award, visit www.daisyfoundation.org.

To learn more about Wayne HealthCare, visit https://www.waynehealthcare.org/.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].