How Nurses Change Lives by Showing Up

PerfectServe’s fifth annual Nurses of Note awards program honors exceptional nurses who exemplify dedication, leadership, and compassion in their work. Chosen from a large pool of nominees, these individuals regularly go above and beyond the call of duty, making a meaningful impact on patients and their communities every day. 

This year, grand prize winners were chosen in four new award categories: Innovative Technology Utilization, Excellence in Nursing Leadership, Exceptional Team Support, and Patient-Centered Care Excellence. Read the full list of winners here.

Madison Poon, RN | Patient-Centered Care Excellence Award

When Madison Poon walks into the NICU at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, she feels a rush of excitement. No two days look the same: Some mornings start with bottle feedings and routine assessments, while other days have her caring for a critically ill baby whose condition could shift in an instant. Some days, she becomes a little more than a nurse—she becomes the primary support system for a family that may be going through a scary time. 

It’s that kind of dedication and compassion that earned Madison the 2025 Patient-Centered Care Excellence Award! 

The NICU is Calling 

Madison always knew she wanted to work in healthcare, but nursing wasn’t always the planned destination. She explored a few different career options, and it took time (and a little bit of nursing school) to convince Madison it’s where she belonged. While she was in school, she worked as a monitor tech and patient care assistant in the NICU at Christ College of Nursing, which gave her an up-close look at the inner workings of the nursing profession.

“I really looked up to the nurses who were able to be voices for patients and patient populations that couldn’t advocate for themselves,” Madison said. “I thought that was such a cool aspect of working in the NICU.”

She was also drawn to the variety and complexity of the life of a NICU nurse. Each patient is different, and each shift brings new challenges. She’s the type of person who likes doing something different each day, as long as it helps her patients feel better. 

A Very Special Patient 

Throughout her years as a nurse, Madison has cared for many babies, and that means supporting their families, too. But one patient in particular presented a unique and unforgettable opportunity. Normally, Madison rotates between night and day shifts, meaning she doesn’t always stay with one patient for more than a shift or two. But one week, she worked a few nights back to back, allowing her to become especially close with a family whose daughter was navigating a particularly rough start to life. 

“I had this patient three nights in a row, and you could tell they had been through so much already in such a short time,” Madison said. “It was pretty clear [she and her family] had a long road ahead. I just felt like … I’m going to join her care team. I’m going to be that consistent nurse.”

This baby faced a series of medical obstacles, and a family member happened to also be a nurse at Children’s. Once Madison became a part of the care team, she found herself not only caring for the baby, but also for the parents and extended family.

Seeing the same nurse day after day gave the family an extra dose of comfort and trust. Madison knew the baby’s clinical picture inside and out, but more importantly, she knew what the family needed emotionally. She became a stable support pillar, answering hundreds of questions and sitting with the family for long periods of time when her schedule would allow it.

“When she was having these big moments in her health journey, it was comforting for [her family] to have a nurse that they knew knew their baby,” Madison said. “It gave them someone they felt comfortable asking tough questions.”

Lessons in Presence and Empathy 

Being a primary nurse for a family like this taught Madison something powerful: the value of showing up.

“Families really love having that familiar face,” she said. “You have to meet them where they are in their journey every day and feel out what they’re up for, what conversations they do or don’t want to have. It’s something you learn with time and experience.”

Though she’s a young nurse with much to learn, Madison realized that being a NICU nurse isn’t just about clinical skill—it’s also about being human in the hardest moments.

“The hardest part is seeing families go through these nightmare situations you’d never want anyone to experience,” Madison said. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do to lighten the gravity of the situation. But you show up. You root for them. You think about them even when you’re not at work.”

Why Recognition Matters

When Madison learned she’d been nominated for a Nurses of Note award by her fellow nurse, she cried. The recognition was just the boost she needed.

“The first time I read [the nomination], I just cried,” she said. “You go in every day and do your best. You want families to feel supported and cared for. To hear that you actually made them feel that way is so validating, especially as a newer nurse.”

Thank You

Madison, your dedication reminds us what patient-centered care really means: showing up with compassion, building trust, and walking alongside patients and families in their most vulnerable moments. Congratulations on being a 2025 Nurse of Note. We’re honored to celebrate you!

To learn more about Madison and her life as a nurse, we asked her a few additional questions:

If you could change one thing about the nursing field of the future, what would it be?

I would like to see health systems offer more resources for burnout. I hear a lot of older nurses and some nursing friends talk about how quickly burnout and mental health stuff can arise in nursing. There are so many amazing nurses who are great at the bedside, but they don’t have any resources to prevent burnout.  

Children’s offers really good resources like counseling for providers. I know not every hospital puts an emphasis on mental health, so I would like to see that. I think it would help more experienced nurses stay at the bedside longer. Some other factors include a high patient load and feeling underpaid, so addressing those would also help. 

Why is nurse recognition so important?  

It’s really important, especially being a newer nurse. When your peers or families go out of their way to say, “I see you, I see all the things that you’re doing,” that makes all the difference after a hard day. It really builds confidence as well, and can even help with burnout. It means a lot that others see all the effort you’re putting into your role, both mentally and physically. We don’t do nursing for the recognition, but it’s still nice to know that people appreciate what you’re doing for them.

What do you do to unwind after work?

I wish I had a more entertaining answer, but really I just love to come home and relax with a TV show, a good meal, and with my boyfriend and my cats. Going to bed early is also really nice after a long, stressful day.

How to Improve Nurse Retention 

As Madison mentions, nurse burnout is exacerbated by a number of factors. A 2022 CDC study found that nurse burnout was getting worse, with 44% saying they were “somewhat or very likely” looking for a new job.¹ 

Nurses are struggling for a number of reasons, including growing patient acuity, tech bloat, admin overwhelm, poor scheduling, understaffing, and more. For far too long, these issues have been explained away as “just part of the job,” but the truth is, leaders can begin tackling retention issues by mitigating stress and burnout. 

How? Retaining your nurse teams goes beyond giving nurses more time off. Here are a few concrete steps leaders can take to start making a real difference:

1. Help nurses feel safer at work: 1 in 4 nurses are assaulted on the job, and even more have to tolerate verbal abuse. Technology—like a communication platform, especially if it’s accessible inside the EHR—can help by giving nurses a quick, discreet way to summon help to a patient room or report dangerous situations in real time.
2. Reduce alarm fatigue: Nurses receive a nearly endless barrage of notifications during the course of a shift. Reduce the chaos by routing non-urgent messages (like water requests) to support staff and prioritizing alerts to cut down the noise.
3. Improve communication workflows: Nurses often have to guess if a message has been received or read—and that’s if they know who to message in the first place. Purpose-built healthcare communication technology can show who’s on call in real time, confirm delivery and read status, and escalate unanswered messages when necessary.
4. Improve staffing and scheduling: Staffing shortages and associated scheduling difficulties are the primary drivers of burnout for nurses. In some cases, nurses are assigned more patients than they can reasonably care for, and they’re sometimes overscheduled to the point that even short breaks aren’t feasible. Many health systems need to rethink their staffing and scheduling strategy to mitigate nurse burnout and better support them in their roles. 
5. Give nurses a seat at the table: Nurses carry a large portion of the patient care load, which gives them plenty of exposure to the roadblocks that slow patient care down and exacerbate their stress levels. When you’re considering new technology or thinking about revamping clinical workflows, give nurses a seat at the table so they feel heard and valued—and so your plans are informed by experience that comes straight from the front lines of patient care.