It’s been a remarkable nursing journey for 23-year-old Jay Larsen, a NICU nurse at HSHS St. Vincent’s Children’s Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Born prematurely, she spent her early months in the same NICU where she now provides care to infants in need. This unique connection to her work is a testament to the power of serendipity in guiding our paths.
For Larsen, working in the NICU is more than a job – it’s a calling. She is dedicated to providing hope to families during their NICU journey and caring for the most fragile infants in the hospital. Because of this, Daily Nurse proudly recognizes her as Nurse of the Week. Her personal story and unique perspective make her a symbol of hope for those she serves.
The walls just outside the NICU are adorned with pictures of graduates who have grown healthy after their time in the neonatal intensive care unit. Although Larsen’s photo isn’t there yet, she hopes it will be soon. Born at just 24 weeks, she was extremely tiny and faced many health challenges during her 99-day stay before finally going home.
Now, Larsen brings a unique perspective to her work, having been through the same experience as the families she supports. Her journey provides hope to parents facing the uncertainty of a NICU stay, and she is grateful for the opportunity to learn from the nurses who once cared for her.
As Larsen continues to grow in her role, she looks forward to the possibility of one day working alongside a baby she helped care for in the NICU, completing the full circle of her remarkable journey.
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
It’s Halloween at the Children’s Hospital New Orleans (CHNOLA), and the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nursing team is celebrating with adorable handmade animal costumes for their babies. The NICU nursing team will dress as zookeepers to match the babies.
Emily Cade, RN in the CHNOLA NICU, says making costumes and dressing the babies up for Halloween is a special tradition in the Children’s Hospital NICU.
“We love seeing our babies celebrate their first Halloween, and we love the joy the parents get from having a little bit of real-life normalcy while their babies are in the hospital.”
Haley Ingold, mom of baby Rhett, says being in the hospital with her baby can be sad and scary. “It’s really fun that the nurses do this for the babies. It makes being in the hospital fun and a little less difficult.”
The NICU nurses all chip in to make the costumes and treat all the babies as their own. Their kindness and compassion embody CHNOLA values, and they go above and beyond to give families the best experience.
The CHNOLA NICU nursing teams include Jacqueline Schnapp, Courtney Finnegan, Remy Rodrigues, Camryn Faucheaux, Robyn Ledet, Katherine Treuting, Madeline Haydel, Hailey Diechmann, Sarah Finken, Brooke Tompkins, Ashley Gullo, Madeline Eckert, and Emily Cade.
As a single working mom and PhD candidate, Leticia Rios, RN, has balanced many 24/7 challenges, applying lessons learned as a caretaker, clinician, and educator to her mission, helping mothers and babies in underserved communities avoid adverse birth and neonatal outcomes.
Rios received the top honor for Clinical Nursing Excellence from the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council at this year’s Nurse of Excellence Award Ceremony. She was among 23 nominees selected by nurse leaders at hospitals and teaching institutions throughout Long Island.
And now Rios can add another accolade to her list of honors as Daily Nurse’sNurse of the Week.
We are proud to honor Rios for being an outstanding practitioner, leader, and advocate in the maternal and neonatal health equity field.
The Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council cited her service as the nursing professional development specialist in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island and for being a certified neonatal nurse and an internationally board-certified lactation consultant. Rios has helped implement practice changes that lead to quality improvements in the NICU, including achieving more than 1,000 days without a central line bloodstream infection and zero hospital-acquired pressure injuries to date.
As a co-chair of the Black Mothers Matter Committee, “she passionately advocates for maternal health equity locally, regionally, and globally,” says Valerie T. Terzano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, vice president for nursing and patient care services at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island.
Rios, along with other members of the committee, was credited with developing a Holistic Black Birth Nurse Navigator program to improve outcomes and experience for Black birthing patients. The successful pilot has been awarded a research grant from the National Institutes of Health. Rios is also a core New York State Birth Equity Improvement Project member.
Rios struggled to get support to exclusively breastfeed her daughter after giving birth. Knowing that breastfeeding can reduce maternal and infant morbidity and mortality, the experience prompted her to start a business dedicated to educating and supporting other mothers to meet their breastfeeding goals. She also facilitated a grassroots initiative, Brownsville Baby Café, which provides breastfeeding support for underserved women and addresses food insecurity and other social issues.
As a young person and daughter of immigrants, Rios says navigating academia was challenging. Despite those barriers, the NYU Langone nurse is working on a dissertation for her PhD from Adelphi University. She summed up her passion for being a maternal health advocate with a quote from celebrated neuroscientist Abhijit Naskar: “Injustice on one life is injustice on all lives.”
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
NICU nurse Katrina Mullen knew finding a foster home for a 14-year-old mother who had just delivered triplets would be impossible.
“No one was going to take a teen mom and her preemie triplets,” says Mullen.
So Mullen, a neonatal nurse at Community Hospital North in Indianapolis, Indiana and mother of five, officially adopted the teen mom, Shariya Small and her triplets – more than two years after the pair met when she gave birth. Daily Nurse is proud to honor Mullen as our Nurse of the Week.
Small was in the 8th grade when she gave birth to Serenitee, Samari, and Sarayah in 2020. The triplets were premature, born at just 26 weeks, and spent more than five months in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Community Hospital North.
A Bond Develops
During their time in the NICU, Mullen noticed the young mom visited her babies alone, not appearing to have much of a support system. “She’d be there alone for days at a time sitting at her babies’ bedside,” she says.
At first, Small did not want to open up about her life, but the teen mom eventually developed a special bond with Mullen. That changed after she learned that Mullen had her first child at 16 and had given it up for adoption. Before they were discharged, she gave Small her phone number and encouraged her to call if she needed anything.
Their experiences bonded the two moms, and Mullen began helping to care for the babies and Small by giving her advice and showing her how to care for the infants properly.
The two kept in touch, and Mullen eventually visited Small at her home in Kokomo. That’s when the nurse realized Small’s situation — she was sleeping on a couch, and her children were sleeping together in a playpen.
“It was not a place for her to raise babies,” she says.
Mullen also noticed that one of the babies, Samari, did not seem well. He was later hospitalized and diagnosed with failure to thrive, a condition related to infants or children being underweight for their age.
A case worker from the Department of Social Services later called and informed her that Small and the babies were being removed from the home they were living in and that Small had requested to live with Mullen.
Family Ever After
“I just kept thinking, ‘I have to do this.’ I knew Shariya was intelligent and resilient, and she needed a safe place to put her roots,” she says. “I knew it would be hard, but we’d figure it out.”
For 688 days, Mullen fostered Small and her three children in the home she shares with her three younger children, SeQuayvion, 16, ShaKovon, 14, and JJ, 7.
Small eventually graduated from an alternative high school and learned all she could from Mullen about caring for her children.
Two months ago, Mullen’s adoption of Small was finalized. Mullen has also adopted her 2-year-old triplets, according to the reports.
To help “build a financial cushion” for her children, Mullen has created a GoFundMe campaign. More than $35,500 has been raised through the fundraiser since it launched.
Mullen hopes to use some of the money for Small’s “future college experience and adventures this coming fall.”
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
It is not unusual for nursing and other healthcare professions to run in the family, but sometimes the connections that lead a new generation into nursing can be almost eerie.
Tara Wood, DNP, CRNP, NNP-BC was a NICU nurse when she gave birth to twins Jade and Taylor England. Her newborns weighed less than two pounds and spent their first 87 days in a NICU. At some point, it seems to have been written that at least one daughter was destined to return one day.
“We had central lines,” says Jade England, who is completing her BSN degree at the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Nursing. Both sisters have a permanent souvenir of the constant care they needed from birth: “We still have that scar from where they were placed. It’s just crazy to see that we have actual proof of what we’ve been through.”
That scar is the only physical reminder of their journey. England knows how lucky they are to not have any complications from being born prematurely. Growing up, she saw the pictures of their tiny bodies covered in sensors and tubes. When she decided to become a nurse, she knew she had to return to where her story started—the NICU.
“You have to have compassion for those babies. You just have to be called to do that,” England said. “I want to be able to be that nurse to let the parents know that I was in their child’s place. I just want to provide the best care possible and hopefully sharing my story will make a difference in their stay in the NICU. I don’t want to give them false hope, but I also want them to know that miracles happen.”
“She literally walked me around the entire unit and was telling everybody, ‘this is my baby, I took care of her and her sister.’”
Jade England graduated in April and now works at UAB Hospital in the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her mother, Tara Wood – who is a member of the faculty at UABSON hopes her daughter will be able to give families the comfort she remembered needing.
“They’re going to be told all the bad, but when you can see a living example of success, I think it’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait to see what she does,” Wood said.
England will be working with one of the nurse practitioners who cared for her at the hospital where she was born. During her clinical at UAB, they made the connection.
“She literally walked me around the entire unit and was telling everybody, ‘this is my baby, I took care of her and her sister,’” England said.
“I think I found healing by helping others.”
Wood remembers not being able to hold her children for months. During that time, her lifeline to her girls was the nurses and nurse practitioners.
“My world was rocked,” Wood said. “My babies were really sick. Both of the girls were on the ventilator for weeks. Their organs were premature, and you’re faced with all the things that can go wrong. Just knowing that every minute mattered, it really put you in a constant state of terror and panic, of not really knowing how your babies are going to survive, much less thrive.”
She had planned on becoming a teacher, but the twins’ experience in the hospital changed her life. She realized she wanted to be a nurse so she could care for other families.
After working as a NICU nurse, Wood earned her Master of Science (MSN) in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from the UAB School of Nursing. The journey came full circle for her as well. She’s now an Assistant Professor at the School and the Coordinator for the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Specialty Track, teaching and preparing nurses to care for infants and families.
“Being a NICU mom 22 years ago we didn’t really talk about post-traumatic stress disorder and things like that that really lingered. I think I found healing by helping others,” Wood said.
Taylor England, Jade’s twin sister, also graduated from UAB this spring with a major in psychology with a minor in legal affairs and a certificate in mental health.
Jade wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps and plans to return to school next year to start the Post-BSN to DNP Nurse Practitioner Pathway to earn her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. One day, she hopes to teach alongside her mom.
“I’m a proud mom and I want to share them with the world because I think that they were born to do great things,” their mother says. “They have servants’ hearts, and they want to help and do good.”
One occupational hazard of being a nurse (or even a nursing student!) is that friends, family, and even brand-new acquaintances tend to buttonhole you for on-the-spot diagnoses and ad hoc consultations. And, since you are completely on board with helping people, you respond as a nurse whether you’re wearing scrubs or street clothes. So, it comes as no surprise that so many off-duty nurses save lives at accident scenes, public events, and —in the case of our Nurse of the Week, Loyola Medicine NICU nurse Mary Lovelace, RN—sometimes they save the odd life while on vacation.
The pint-sized (5’2”) Lovelace is accustomed to treating tiny, premature newborns, so the encounter with her first grown-up “patient” in years gave her quite a workout. The 58-year-old was returning from dinner with friends during a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona when a stranger went into cardiac arrest and fell down right in front of her male partner’s son. Lovelace initially thought the large man was merely clowning with friends, but then, recalls, “I looked down and I’m like, ‘Oh, god. He was already really gray.” She shared a few traits with the fallen man. Angelo Valenti is also 58; he’s from Chicago as well and was visiting Scottsdale on vacation; and suddenly, both their holidays had become extremely eventful.
As Lovelace told Valenti’s companions to call 911 and seek out a defibrillator, she was already starting work on her patient. On duty in the NICU, she customarily performs two-finger CPR on neonates, but as luck had it, less than a month ago she’d brushed up on the standard, much more muscular resuscitation technique at a CPR refresher course. Like most nursing jobs, caring for preemies requires physical strength and endurance, though, and Lovelace persevered with her best two-fisted CPR for eight minutes, only stopping when the local EMTs showed up. In fact, one of Valenti’s ribs broke during her compressions, but keeping a cool head, she remembers thinking, “In my mind, I’m like, ‘Oh buddy, I’m sorry, but thank goodness you’re still breathing.’”
An ambulance arrived and sped Valenti to the nearest hospital. He was unable to respond to his name for the first couple of days but quickly recovered and flew home a week later after surgeons implanted him with a cardioverter-defibrillator to help prevent a future cardiac arrest.
The two Chicagoans have been in touch since their paths crossed so dramatically and have formed a bond. When a grateful Valenti called to thank her for her prompt care, “It was very powerful,” Lovelace says, “It was a very emotional conversation. I’m glad I was there at the right time to do what I can do and what I’ve been trained to do over the years.”
See a full account of Mary Lovelace and Angelo Valenti’s exciting Arizona journey at the Chicago Tribune.
