Dawn Ferguson, RN, of Anderson Hospital’s Surgical Services Departmentwas recently honored with The DAISY Award® For Extraordinary Nurses. The award is part of the DAISY Foundation's programs to recognize the super-human efforts nurses perform every day.
The nomination submitted read:
“On 1/26/26 we had a late add on surgery, a leg amputation. I went to see the patient to do the pre-anesthesia assessment. The patient had a particularly complicated medical history including a psychiatric diagnosis and anxiety, plus numerous comorbid medical conditions. In addition, she had an IV that was questionably functional. As happens with late add on surgeries, the OR staff is stressed and trying to move quickly. The patient had many issues needing to be addressed, including assessing the IV, labs, and preop medical functional status. I could see this was increasing the patient’s anxiety further. Dawn was our circulator RN and did a fantastic job getting through the patients preop checklist. When done with that, Dawn could see that the patient was nervous, getting more upset, and sort of overwhelmed with this upcoming surgery. Dawn sat at the edge of her bed and asked her some other non-related questions to distract her and comfort her while I was assessing her IV status. She really spent extra time trying to make this upcoming life changing surgery more understandable and hopefully less scary. This is especially admirable as the tone in healthcare procedure area is to ask "how long will this surgery take", "when will we be done", "will this be a case that goes into call time" and "what was your turn over time". I am so impressed that Dawn is willing to step outside this approach and address the comfort and mental status of a patient without considering the above factors. It is a refreshing attitude.”
The not-for-profit DAISY Foundation is based in Glen Ellen, CA, and was established by family members in memory of J. Patrick Barnes. Patrick 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. The care Patrick and his family received from nurses while he was ill inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.