Samantha Childress, a nurse in Hamilton Medical Center’s (HMC) Emergency Department, recently received the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses. The DAISY Award recognizes exemplary nursing excellence and is the highest honor a nurse can receive at HMC.
Childress was nominated for the award based on her compassion, passion for nursing, empathy, trust, teamwork, exceptional care, patience, kindness, approachability, and selflessness.
The award, presented in collaboration with The American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) is part of the DAISY Foundation’s program to recognize the super-human efforts nurses perform every day.
DAISY Award recipients receive an honorary DAISY pin, a banner to display on their unit, an award certificate, and the Healer’s Touch, a hand-carved sculpture by the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe. The sculpture is especially meaningful because of the profound respect the Shona tribe gives to their traditional “healers.” A Shona healer is affectionately regarded as a treasure by those they are caring for which describes exactly how the DAISY Foundation and HMC feel about nurses.
Fifty other nurses were also nominated for the award. They include: Tiffany Blackwood, Ticia Canales, Cass McAllister, Karina Smith, Payton Castillo, Paula Baliles, Brandy Southerland, Hannah Lipsey, Devan Cochran, Julia Burris, Ashton Lowery, Wanda Garner, Brittany Haverkamp, Cheryl Baird, Elizabeth Bennett, Tiffany Suits, Ryan Gutierrez, Emily Everett, Allison Norman, Corbin Blankenship, Brian Jacobo-Villalobos, Jason Harrod, Erika Paez, Daniel Love, Denise Hernandez, Zulfiya Ysidro, Jisha Roberts, Katie Butler, Jaime Simulis, Avery Bowling, Zach Henson, Amanda Cargal, Scott Cavanaugh, Guadalupe Lawrence, Alexandria Rhodes, Cesar Lee, Amy Neighbors, Crizel Gabay, Kim Rich, Allison Roberts, Rebecca White, Ashley Barmore, Amanda Robertson, Brett Byrd, Angela Brown, Emily Allen, Stephanie Bergeron, Anna Fleming, Diana Heredia, Julius Salomon, Brooklyn Ashurst, Crystal Wyatt, Janet Moore-Allen, Eunice Ngere, Genevieve Cook, Donetha Puckett, Tom Harp, Anna Williams, Hannah Atkinson, Sabrina Anderson, Cody McKinney, Penny Pitts, Amber Tuck, Sydney Sanchez, Flavian Murunga, Ruby Martinez, Cheryl Mitchell and Lilian Ngundi.
The not-for-profit DAISY Foundation is based in Glen Ellen, Calif., and was established by family members in memory of J. Patrick Barnes. Barnes died at the age of 33 in late 1999 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little-known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System.