 Penn State Children's Hospital PICU/PIMCU
Nurses named 2002 Best Nursing Team by
ADVANCE FOR NURSES™ Magazine
Children’s Hospital nursing team
honored as best in the tri-state region
The nurses of the
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and
the Pediatric Intermediate Care Unit (PIMCU)
of Penn State Children’s Hospital have
been named 2002 Best Nursing Team by
Advance for Nurses™ magazine. The
PICU/PIMCU nursing team received a
perfect score from the publication’s
panel of judges—a first for any nursing
team.
News of the honor
was announced today at a ceremony to
unveil the cover of the newest issue of
Advance for Nurses™, which
features the PICU/PIMCU team. The April
29, 2002 issue also includes a feature
article on the team detailing why it was
chosen as the best nursing team over
competition from across three states:
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Advance for
Nurses™ is published by Merion
Publications, publishers of 26 allied
health professional magazines. It is a
biweekly regional magazine with 75,000
subscribers in the Philadelphia
Tri-state region.
“Advance for
Nurses™ is always excited to be able
to promote and recognize one team each
year that exemplifies the essence of
teamwork,” said Gail Guterl, the
magazine’s editor. “This year we were
especially excited to recognize the PICU/PIMCU
at Penn State Children’s Hospital
because it received a perfect score from
all three judges. In the four years of
running the Best Nursing Team contest,
that has never happened.”
In December, the
nursing team applied for the 4th
annual Advance for Nurses™ Best
Nursing Team 2002 contest by submitting
a 4-page entry describing examples of
initiative, adaptability, knowledge and
teamwork. The entry also required
information about the unit’s nurse
recruitment and retention efforts,
awards the team or its individual nurses
have previously earned and examples of
ways the team goes “above and beyond”
its normal responsibilities.
In the application,
Paula Cameron, RN, clinical head nurse
of the PICU/PIMCU said, “We have one of
the best places to practice pediatric
nursing on the East Coast: A hospital
committed to excellence in research,
learning and practice that values the
skills and quality of the staff. I hope
you will consider this team for this
year’s award.”
 Having earned a
perfect score from the judges and this
year’s Best Nursing Team honors, Cameron
and her colleagues are elated. “Most
people dont know that the PICU and
PIMCU exist until they have a critically
ill child,” says Cameron. “This award
is a true reflection of the team spirit
we have and the highly specialized care
we give. I am very proud of all our
staff.”
“The Pediatric ICU
and IMCU nursing staff exemplifies the
best in nursing practice,” says Patricia
M. Millner, MEd, CRNP, director of
nursing for the Children’s Hospital.
“They represent the best of Penn State
Children’s Hospital through their
expertise, their demonstration of
compassion to patients and families,
their application of critical knowledge
and their ability to make critical
decisions about a vast spectrum of
pediatric patients in various
developmental stages and with a wide
range of medical needs.”
Millner’s
sentiments are echoed by Steven Lucking,
M.D., director of the PICU and vice
chair of Pediatrics for Clinical
Affairs. “The secret of our success is
the highly collaborative
multidisciplinary care by our team of
pediatric medical and surgical
specialists, nurses, therapists,
nutritionists and all who help us care
for these children,” says Lucking. “This
award is recognition of the kind of
comprehensive and compassionate care
that is the hallmark of Penn State
Children’s Hospital.”
 Penn State
Children’s Hospital is a 117-bed
pediatric hospital located within Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical
Center. The PICU at Children’s Hospital
is the only fully equipped and staffed
pediatric ICU anywhere in Central
Pennsylvania. It is equipped with all
the necessary technology for full life
support and monitoring, including
mechanical ventilation, hemodynamic
monitoring and support, renal dialysis,
pre- and post-operative support for
trauma patients, invasive and
non-invasive neurointensive monitoring
for treatment of brain injury, pre- and
post-operative support of infants and
children with heart disease, organ
transplantation, toxicological
emergencies, high frequency ventilation,
nitric oxide therapy, and extra
corporeal membrane oxygenation.
The 83 registered
nurses in the PICU and PIMCU are charged
with the daily care of patients ranging
from a few days old to age 19 and
beyond. They are highly skilled
caregivers who must be capable of
responding quickly and calmly to a wide
variety of medical challenges. In
addition to the deft handling of their
normal job responsibilities, many of the
PICU/PIMCU nurses serve on hospital
committees, working on issues such as
patient and employee satisfaction,
scheduling, nursing practice and
education, quality, leadership and
clinical issues.
As winners of this contest, the nurses
from the unit will be wined and dined at
an as-yet-to-be-determined restaurant,
courtesy of Advance. They have
received an engraved plaque
commemorating their title as Best
Nursing Team of 2002. In addition, every
member of the team received a
certificate, an Advance for Nurses™
coffee mug and other Advance
keepsakes to remind them of their role
in this outstanding group.
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