Marie is shown center with, from left, Lauren Fleming, MA, BSN, RN, MEDSURG-BC, Director of the MMC Magnet and DAISY Award Programs, and Chief Nursing Officer Darla Harmer, MSN, RN, NE-BC at her DAISY Award Presentation.
Long Branch, NJ, September 27, 2023 – A registered nurse with Monmouth Medical Center’s (MMC) Psychiatric Emergency Screening Services (PESS) unit who is praised as a leader, exemplary, inspirational, strong, and betters the lives of everyone she encounters has been honored with the quarterly DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses®.
In nominating PESS nurse Marie Brackett, RN, PMH-BC, nominations were submitted that included these comments:
- Marie came to MMC in 1996 and worked on the inpatient units for many years until coming to PESS in 2008. She has taken a lead role in keeping all Behavioral Health staff safe by volunteering to train all new hires to the department in best practices. Her wealth of experience and great memory allows all of us to profit from our time with her. She has been engaged in our hospital’s Magnet Recognition Program® for nursing excellence and is a leader on our divisional shared governance council. She has personally helped many nurses throughout Behavioral Health obtain their nursing board certifications and advance up the clinical ladder. Marie has very much been a “glue person” on the unit; someone that staff comes to with questions and difficult problems that come up daily. She provides stability and a calming factor on the unit whenever she is there. I know MMC and the entire PESS family is really proud of Marie.
- Marie is a quintessential Magnet® nurse – one who works to champion core values with compassion and supports professional development, promotes a positive work culture, and empowers her fellow nurses and screeners to provide the highest level of care through autonomy and shared-decision making.
- I have been blown away by the dedication, bravery, courage, compassion, knowledge, expertise, and patience she demonstrates while working in her field. I see how Marie’s peers interact with her, how the mutual respect blooms and grows, creating an ironclad bond between them, on a unit where trust serves as its foundation.
- I attended a Behavioral Health Council for shared governance meeting one day, of which Marie is an active member. Numerous nurses came in and out of the conference room throughout the duration that I was there – just to come see Marie. In typical Marie fashion, she had taken it upon herself to walk these nurses through their clinical ladder binders – encouraging their professional growth and boosting the rates of Behavioral Health nurses participating in the professional development advancement program. She has a wonderfully thorough and entertaining way of explaining things and is a consummate professional. This ability to relate to others in different situations makes her a nurse with elevated empathy and poise.
- It is because of her incredible impact – whether it is working with the PESS team, BEST training and educating staff, expertly navigating the interprofessional support staff through the care continuum, advancing shared governance in the division, picking up extra shifts, being a positive force and representative of MMC, supporting Magnet and its message of empowerment, or working with local law enforcement – that Marie is more than deserving of the DAISY Nurse title.
Marie is shown with, fifth and sixth from right, Marli Gelfand, MA, LPC, ACS, Assistant Vice President, Behavioral Health Services, and Douglas Hoffman, Director of PESS, and team members from PESS and Behavioral Health Services.
DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. The DAISY Foundation was formed by the family of Patrick Barnes who died at age 33 of complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), an auto-immune disease. His widow, Tena, (a DAISY Co-founder) created the acronym, and the Foundation and established the DAISY Recognition Program to honor the super-human work nurses do every day at the bedside.
CONTACT: Kathy Horan
(732) 546-6317
Kathy.Horan@rwjbh.org