Madeleine Herr, RN

In my current position, I have the opportunity to serve as a key point of contact between patients and their medical team to help them reach their healthcare goals. I am responsible for the following:

• Liaise with multidisciplinary healthcare teams to organize, coordinate, and implement services to meet patient's complex care needs.
• Collaborate with various community organizations to promote improved access to healthcare services.
• Participate in team meetings to discuss strategies for improving patient outcomes.
• Establish personal rapport and develop strong relationships with patients and families to provide continuity of care throughout treatments and therapeutic interventions.
• Provide patient teaching and health education to support care continuum and disease prevention
• Triage patient conditions and symptoms to determine appropriate plan of care and treatment destination.
• Coordinate referrals to specialists when appropriate and followed up on test results and procedures ordered by physician.
• Serve on the safety committee to help develop a standardized rapid response team protocol. Organize and direct mock codes including cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis, opioid overdose, and mental health crisis for continuing education. Revised and updated the clinic's urgency cart to meet current safety standards.

I had the privilege of continuing to refine my skills as a circulating nurse in the operating room. Here I was able to experience all departments of surgery, allowing me to expand my knowledge and critical thinking skills. My daily responsibilities remained similar to my previous position in addition to:

• Conducting pre-operative visit to answer patient questions, educate patients regarding scheduled procedure, and assess patient condition.
• Assisting anesthesia staff with the induction of anesthesia, including patient masking, intubation and extubation and placement of sequential compression device (SCD).
• Ensuring proper preparation of surgical suite; including assessment of equipment and tools needed for procedure and physician specific positioning and prepping of patient and surgical site.

I had the honor to work alongside other esteemed professionals as a charge nurse in the General/Colorectal/Transplant surgical department at the Mayo Clinic. There I was a part of both the surgical team as a circulating nurse and the leadership team as the evening charge nurse. I played a crucial role in the management of the day-to-day smooth running of OR activities. I was integrally involved in ensuring that staff, patients, and equipment come together seamlessly to move patients through the surgical process. I was responsible for the following:

• Preparing surgical suite according to surgery and surgeon preference; ensuring that the Operating Room is stocked with all necessary supplies, implants, instruments, and equipment in accordance with the physician’s preference card.
• Collaborating with the surgical team to ensure the highest safety and surgical standards for the patient.
• Managing the overall nursing care in the Operating Room during procedures; including maintaining compliance with environmental asepsis standards, positioning and preparing patient for specific procedure, and accurately and legibly documenting in the patient’s medical record.
• Anticipating the needs of the patient, surgeon, and anesthesiologist throughout the surgical procedure.
• Management of pathology specimens.
• Supervise up to 60+ staff and 20+ operating rooms at any given time.
• Determine appropriate staff assignments based off surgical needs and shift end.
• Triage and coordination of surgical sequencing and patient report times.

My first position as an RN provided me with the privilege of caring for a nine-month-old client that required extensive around-the-clock supervision and treatment. In doing so I was able to provide both the client and their family the opportunity to receive the care they need in the comfort of their own home. I was responsible for the following:

• Providing care in coordination with physicians and other health care workers to achieve patient care goals.
• Administering medications and enteral tube feedings via G-tube.
• Maintaining airway patency by management of tracheal ventilator.
• Assuring quality of care by adhering to therapeutic standards; measuring the health outcome against the pre-established patient care goals; making or recommending the necessary treatment adjustments to achieve those goals.
• Promoting whole family independence by establishing patient care goals; educating family to understand condition, treatments, medications, and care-skills; answering questions.

This rehabilitation/short stay unit provided me with a variety of patients from geriatric and hospice patients to those recovering from a surgery or procedure. I was responsible for the following:

• Assisted patients with all activities of daily living (ADLs).
• Provided safe transfers/mobility assistance.
• Collected patient data such as vital signs, intake and output volumes, and weights and documented these findings in online medical data base.
• Reported vital patient information to nurse supervisor and assigned co-workers to ensure continuity of care.
• Adhered to HIPPA guidelines and maintained patient confidentiality.
• Protected the nursing home community by adhering to professional standards, policies and procedures, federal, state, and local requirements, and JCAHO standards.