Nurse’s Week/Hospital Week Awards

At my hospital, we celebrate quarterly awards.

Throughout the quarter, nominations are gathered and the subjects are identified.

And usually, late in the second month of the next quarter, after the nominations are all tallied, and voted upon, there is an award’s celebration.

May is atypical. Those of us who oversee the awards process have two double time it to ensure that the awards are ready to be given out during the week’s celebration.

This past quarter there were 90 nominations. Nurses, and CNAs, and techs, and dietary, and environmental staff, and front desk staff were all represented.

During the thick of the pandemic, I think our smallest nomination haul was 17. Not that we weren’t providing a valuable and valued service, but no one had a moment or a brain cell to spare to conceptualize and nomination, let alone write one.

Tomorrow, we will be giving out all the awards. I have been writing the script for the presentation. Because we added a new award, that of the Daisy Leader. There have always been a few leader nominations, consistently, and the push was for our hospital to do a Daisy Leader award. This one won’t be quarterly, it will be twice a year.

Because the awards should be about the front-line staff. And those of us who have been at the bedside the entire pandemic.

We even had a student nomination this quarter, the first I believe. And a few nominations for trainee nurses.

Tomorrow, we raise a cinnamon roll to the memory of Patrick Barnes, whose family started the Daisy Foundation. The hospital started the other two awards, the Rose and the Sunshine, because nurses can’t do it alone. And it takes quite a few people to get patients home safe.

I’ll probably cry, I always do.

But we will celebrate those team members who have been singled out by their peers, and by the patients to celebrate them.

Collecting nominations for quarter 2 now.