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Daishany “Dai” Rakestraw, a registered nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital who provides care on the 5th floor medical/surgical unit, has received St. Mary’s DAISY Award for nursing excellence after being nominated by a patient and his wife for her exceptional care.
“I was in the hospital for 14 days,” the patient wrote in Rakestraw’s nomination. “Several nurses were great, but Dai was beyond others. She was compassionate. She listens to you and didn’t complain. She checked into any questions we had. Whatever I needed, she provided. I can’t describe all that I feel for her wonderful care.”
The DAISY Award is an international recognition program that celebrates the skillful and compassionate care nurses provide on a daily basis. It was created as a thank you for the nurses who provided care to Patrick Barnes. Barnes was a 33-year-old husband and father who lost his battle against a deadly autoimmune disease in 1999.
His family created the DAISY Foundation, which now partners with more than 6,500 hospitals and schools in all 50 states and around the world to honor and inspire nurses.
At St. Mary’s, each DAISY Award recipient is recognized at a public ceremony with their colleagues. They receive a certificate, a DAISY Award pin, and a stone sculpture entitled “A Healer’s Touch” that is hand carved by sculptors in Zimbabwe.
The recipient and their colleagues are invited to celebrate the occasion with cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon rolls were a treat Barnes would request even though he could not eat them, as a thank you to the nurses caring for him.
“Our DAISY Award committee was deeply touched by how much Dai’s care meant to this patient and his family,” Ann Gomes, the director of Orthopedics and chair of the St. Mary’s DAISY Committee, said. “It meant so much that they took the time and effort to write a nomination for her, even though they struggled with putting their feelings into words. Dai demonstrated tremendous compassion and reverence for him and his whole family during his extended stay. His words were enough. She certainly deserves this honor.”
Anyone can nominate a St. Mary’s nurse for the DAISY Award and any nurse in the St. Mary’s system is eligible, including those at all three hospitals, home health care/hospice services and medical group offices. St. Mary’s honors eight nurses each year.