Nurse Hanh Tran named Lodi Memorial’s Daisy Award winner
Hanh Tran, a nurse in Adventist Health Lodi Memorial’s medical-surgical unit, was named the newest recipient of the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses at an outdoor employee ceremony Thursday morning. DAISY is an international program honoring nurses for clinical skills and compassionate care, and it honors the work nurses do for their patients and families every single day.
Tran, who was in the audience surrounded by her team, was shocked as the hospital’s patient care executive, Katie Grimm, announced that she was the recipient of this international award based on her significant impact during the COVID-19 surge. Tran was one of the many Adventist Health Lodi Memorial nurses who worked the front lines of COVID19 and continually showed dedication, passion and resiliency through increasing numbers of sick patients and unforeseen circumstances.
“One constant was our nurses — never wavering their commitment, their compassion, their humanity,” Grimm said. “Tired, scared and heartsore, they kept coming back to work … they were the light in the darkness. Hanh Tran was one of those nurses.”
One particularly difficult morning during the COVID-19 surge, Tran had worked for six of the seven days the patient in room 461 had been in the hospital’s care. She had formed a strong bond with the patient and his family. She comforted them and talked with them about the patient’s life, the love of his life and their children. One day many team members remember was the morning the patient in 261 could no longer speak. With his family unable to be with him, Tran stepped in. She was able to speak for him.
Tran and some of her coworkers sat with the patient that day, the day he passed. While there, Tran made a final phone call to his daughter so that one of the last voices he heard was of beloved family, and so that a woman she had never met could say goodbye to her father.
“Hanh stayed with him, holding his hands” Grimm said. “I saw the grief In Hanh’s face. I saw the pain she endured to help another. But she never for a moment thought of herself.”
As Grimm announced Tran’s name to a gathering of nurses and hospital staff, she was in obvious shock. She was supposed to have the morning off, but was easily lured in when a coworker asked her to come in to help with a project.
“I am so honored,” said Tran, who says that patient and that day were the most touching for her. “I got to know him so well, and I talked to his daughter at least twice a day to update her. It was very, very touching that last day. Still, when I walk into room 461, I think of him.”
DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. The DAISY Award is part of the DAISY Foundation’s efforts to nurses who go above and beyond on a daily basis. The not-for-profit DAISY Foundation, based in Glen Ellen, Calif., was established by family members in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 33 from an autoimmune disease.