It was the weekend, a Saturday. Monet Poulin, a fifth semester student, was doing her clinical work at a hospital in Reno, NV. She was assigned to work with a resource nurse who was caring for a male patient who, just the day before, had surgery to amputate one of his legs below the knee. His record showed he was experiencing chest pain and difficulty breathing and his condition had started to decline. Monet thought that odd; she knew a surgery to amputate a leg should not affect his ability to breathe.
Cardiac work was ordered (an EKG and lab tests) and came up negative for heart attack. But it continued to worry Monet that he still needed oxygen, even a higher level than usual. First, she thought to order an IS – an Incentives Spirometer that helps the lungs stay inflated after surgery. She also noticed there had been no test yet to rule out blood clots. She immediately alerted her resource nurse who was in the process of discharging the patient. Instead of discharging him, he was immediately sent for a CTA scan of his lungs and put on an anti-coagulant. If the care team had not done so, the patient would have been discharged with an untreated blood clot.
“I felt Monet showed great initiative and critical thinking, and helped the patient receive timely, potentially life-saving treatment,” says Susan Drossulis, Dean of Nursing and Monet’s 5th semester instructor. Last month, Monet was honored with a DAISY Award for her actions.
“It’s given me a lot of confidence,” Monet says, “It’s a huge honor.”
I grew up in San Luis Obispo, the youngest of six children. I moved around a lot as an adult; I think I lived in seven different states! Mostly in the west, though. I used to work in the outdoor industry – I love backpacking, hiking, skiing, biking…I’ve done some guiding and ski patrol. It’s one of the reasons I chose Reno as a place to live, also because I have a few siblings nearby. But I like the accessibility to the mountains.
I’ll graduate and get my Associate Degree in Nursing in August 2024.
We have a few professors in school who have won. One of those professors was a role model for me.
What has the DAISY Award taught you?It affirms the action of doing something right. Going through school can be really stressful. Sometimes you have imposter syndrome, so now I feel really good. It’s given me a lot of confidence to speak up. You’re doing it for the patient. You’re a team for the benefit of the patient. Teamwork is very important. I’m from an EMS background and teamwork is very important there too. So many things can happen and it’s easy to miss something, so it’s good to have a team.
It’s good to have a desire to help people and to stay curious in general. I didn’t know I wanted to be a nurse at first but I wanted to help people, so I got curious about it. Keep the curiosity and find out what excites you.
We kind of had a thing during class which was really sweet. One of the Directors from Renown stopped by class and my Dean of Nursing and professors brought cupcakes. I went out to dinner with my boyfriend because he also had something to celebrate, he’s about to finish with his pilot license and just flew a plane for the first time by himself.
