Lisa Crouse was alone in her hospital room after having a bilateral mastectomy when she received the news her father died. Both had been undergoing cancer treatment in the same hospital.
After receiving the news, nurse Sandy Parsch was the first person to enter her room. Sandy was quick to comfort Lisa and brought in a wheelchair to escort her to her father’s room for a final goodbye.
“Sandy was so gentle, helping me get into the wheelchair, making sure I had my IV and that my drainage tubes were in the proper position. She took me to my dad's bedside and told me to take all the time I needed,” explained Lisa.
But Sandy wasn’t finished.
Once they returned to Lisa’s room, Sandy reminded her post-surgical walking was necessary to recovery. “Every step of the way, Sandy gave me words of encouragement and comfort for my loss.”
When Lisa learned about Beaumont’s Nurse Hero of the Year award, she knew she had to nominate Sandy. The caring relationship she established went “above and beyond her job duties to help me say goodbye to my dad.”
Lisa’s compelling story helped Sandy win Beaumont’s Hero of the Year. Given the turbulent year front line health care workers have had, it’s a recognition that Sandy doesn’t take lightly.
“Being named Nurse Hero of the Year has been a most humbling experience. To be a nurse means you’ve earned the privilege to care for the sick and the less fortunate,” explained Sandy. “This isn’t an award for one individual,
this is an award for every nurse out there; I am just blessed to hold the award for all of us.”
Sandy’s nursing style has been described as kind and present. It’s something she says “there just isn’t enough of in the world today. Adding, “If we would all do small acts of kindness with great love, this world would be
such a beautiful place.”
A Beaumont nurse for more than 10 years, Sandy says nursing takes a unique kind of love, a strong stomach, and the ability to cry with a patient and then enter the next room with dry eyes, all in the matter of seconds.
Looking forward to 2022, Sandy sees caring for more COVID patients as a high priority for health care systems across the country. Sandy continues to see health care as the ultimate team activity.
“Everyone in health care is an incredible and unselfish human being. No one can keep on giving after the past year and a half that we have all experienced without being a hero, and I don’t think it is just nurses that deserve to be recognized,”
said Sandy.
“Whether you’re a nurse, doctor, assistant, transporter, physical or occupational therapist, X-ray tech, you work in CT/MRI, respiratory therapy, maintenance, housekeeping, dietary or IT, and so many more - we are all heroes. This is teamwork
at its very best and what a blessing it was to have been a part of it.”