One evening in June, my 18-month-old daughter Shea started having difficulty breathing. To say that my husband and I were scared would be a massive understatement. Shea is our only child — I was then six months pregnant with our second — and she had never experienced any health issues prior to this evening.
My husband and I took her to the UC Davis Health Emergency Department. No parent wants to take their child to the ED, especially in the evening after bedtime. As someone who worked in emergency departments for many years, I was frankly wary about what we might experience in terms of patient care and had low expectations, given the late hour and the high patient demand that is so common in EDs.
Boy, was I wrong.
From the moment we checked Shea in, every staff member we encountered was absolutely exceptional! We were seen by triage within 15 minutes of arrival. My mind was blown.
The nurse who completed the initial assessment was so kind and gentle with our daughter. Another nurse came by and blew bubbles to distract her. I can’t tell you how much this meant to our family, to see people who clearly cared about their patients and went out of their way to make us comfortable.
I don’t think any of these staff members knew that I was a colleague, so this was not “special treatment” — this was simply them doing a wonderful job for one of their patients.
We were roomed and again seen very quickly by the Pediatric ED nurse and doctor. Our nurse was exceptional — she was kind, thoughtful, responsive and communicative. She consistently went out of her way to take great care of our daughter and support us completely-freaked-out new parents. This was a wonderful nurse working with a high level of integrity, competence and compassion.
Our doctors were all absolutely wonderful with Shea as well. Our initial doctor brought in a small flashlight to help distract Shea when he was assessing her, which she loved. The other doctors were similarly kind and playful, making this scary moment so much easier for our family.
In the morning, a new nurse signed in. He helped us sing to our daughter to distract her during vitals and he clearly made every effort to help our discharge go quickly and smoothly.
Shea is doing much better (terrorizing us, per usual) and all is well. I cannot express how much the compassion of the Pediatric ED team helped ease the stress of such a difficult situation and how proud I felt to work at this hospital after my experience with this team.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
– Testimonial submitted by Liz Collentine-Cole, Shea’s mother
