Memorial Announces Destany Planchard, RN April 2021 DAISY Foundation Award Winner

The most recent DAISY Foundation award winner Destany Planchard, RN from our Telemetry Unit. The DAISY award is a national award that recognizes extraordinary nurses. 

From the nominator:

I am an RNFA who works in trauma orthopedics. I have 26 years of nursing experience. I have been in the ER, ICU, Surgery and have also been in administration. As you might guess I am pretty critical of nurses. Mostly because I hold them to a high standard. That being said I have recently had an experience with a particular nurse at this facility that far exceeded any standard I have. She has become my new hero. I feel that she is the type of nurse that should represent this facility in every aspect. I really cannot say enough good about her. Her skills range from her unbelievable interpersonal skills to her knowledge of her profession, her unit type, and nursing in general. I might add that she truly represents what I consider a Florence Nightingale nurse. I feel that she truly does this job to help people and represents everything a nurse should be.

To really give you an idea of why I am nominating her for any and every award given to nurses, I guess I should tell you my story. Warning! It is a little lengthy, but I think it is necessary to support my strong feeling of respect and thankfulness. The weekend after Thanksgiving I was in Texas with my family and others. I began to have pain in my back. I just brushed it off as one of the everyday pains I experience as I get older. The pain continued through the night and the following day we traveled home. By that afternoon, the pain had not decreased and my wife, sensing something was wrong, made me go to the ER. Of course, I initially resisted being the know it all that I am. However, I gave in and presented to the ER at LCMH. I still did not feel that the back pain I was experiencing was cardiac-related. After all, I was just 51 years old. Surprise! Surprise! When the bloodwork came back, and the EKG was done I was told that either I had had a heart attack or was currently having one. The cardiologist was notified, and the decision was made for me to be admitted and a heart cath performed in the AM.

Upon admission, I was greeted by the angel that I mentioned above. Destany was very comforting and reassuring and always entered with a smile on her face. She had an uncanny ability to comfort not only me but also my wife who was no doubt going through as much or more mental anguish as myself. She had this amazing caring and kind spirit. This was very comforting, however, her best asset was yet to be shown.

As the night progressed she was in and out of my room checking on me frequently. It was as if she sensed that something was wrong. I might add that the back pain never went away and never decreased in intensity. Finally at about 1 am she did an assessment and informed me that she was phoning the cardiologist because she felt something was not right. Turns out her knowledge and instinct were correct. I was rushed to the cath lab in an emergency and received 2 stents. My nurse had no doubt saved my life. I was told by the cardiologist that I probably would not have survived the night. Thank God for Destany Planchard. I am currently back at work and my cardiologist has informed me that my prognosis is good if I do my part.

In closing, I would like to say that as a nurse I sometimes realized that we are taken for granted. We quite often hear the complaints and not often enough hear the good. I am hoping to change that today. I now more than ever realize that nurses are the cornerstone of medicine. Instead of having a nurse of the month, we should have a nurse of the week, or why not a nurse of the day? My choice would without a doubt be Destany Planchard RN. As I mentioned before she was my angel. I only hope that this email is written eloquently enough to earn her all the honors she so deserves. She saved my life! That is a hero and that is what she will always be to me and my family.

About DAISY

In late 1999, at the age of 33, Patrick Barnes awoke with some blood blisters in his mouth. Having survived Hodgkins Disease twice, he was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with the auto-immune disease, ITP (Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura).

Said his father, Mark Barnes, "We are so blessed that we were able to spend the eight weeks of his hospitalization with him and his family. During those weeks, we experienced the best of Nursing. We were there to see the clinical skill that dealt with his very complex medical situation, the fast thinking of nurses who saved his life more than once, and that nursing excellence that took years to hone to the best of the profession. But frankly, as a patient family, we rather expected that Pat would have great clinical care. That was why he was in the hospital. What we did not expect was the way his nurses delivered that care - the kindness and compassion they gave Pat and all of us in his family every day. We were awed by the way the nurses touched him and spoke with him, even when he was on a ventilator and totally sedated. The way they informed and educated us eased our minds. They truly helped us through the darkest hours of our lives, with soft voices of hope and strong loving hugs that to this day, we still feel."

Just days after he died, the family began talking about what they would do to help fill the giant hole in their hearts that Pat’s passing had left. His wife came up with the acronym, DAISY, standing for diseases attacking the immune system. As they discussed what to do in Patrick’s memory, first and foremost, they wanted to say Thank You for the gifts nurses give their patients and families every day. That is when the family created The DAISY Award For Extraordinary Nurses.

Click here to read more about Destany.