Nurses honored for mentoring

The University of Colorado Hospital’s Professional Resources Department has named its top nurse preceptors for the fourth quarter of 2011. Preceptors are experienced nurses who guide nurses new to the profession or to UCH through a 12-week program. The goal: improve the newcomers’ clinical skills and serve as mentors.

Fourth quarter honorees are:

	Kelly McIntosh, Cardiovascular IMCU, who is described as “dedicated to the success of each new graduate or hire” by nominator Amanda Nenaberm, RN, PCCN, nurse educator with the Cardiovascular Intermediate Care Unit. Nenaberm praised McIntosh’s “positive attitude and supportive presence,” adding she is “a huge advocate for her orientee(s) and ensures that each and every day [is] a successful, rewarding, and positive learning experience.”
	Sara Headrick, Transplant, “is a preceptor worth cloning,” said nominator Heidi Monroe, RN CNS CCTN, clinical nurse specialist and educator with the Organ Transplant Unit. Headrick is a natural teacher, Monroe added, who gives graduate nurses the confidence and skills to succeed. “When I ask new hires what they love about Sara, (they say) it is her passion for her patients, her passion for teaching, the way she guides their decision-making by asking what they are thinking first and helping them find the right path by explaining why, and the fact that she always teaches,” Monroe wrote. “Younger generations of nurses on our unit are better nurses because Sara precepted many of them.”
	Erin Dillard, Surgical ICU, a preceptor since September of 2006, is “an exceptional preceptor (who is) extremely thorough, performs with detailed instructions for those she precepts and passes on high performance nursing standards in practice,” wrote her nominator, SICU Nurse Educator Shannon Johnson Bortolotto. “New staff look to Erin to show them proper practice standards as well as they desire to gain her praise when practice goals are met.”