September, 2021 DAISY Nurse Leader Award
Devin Terry, MSN, RN, CNS-BC, CPHQ
Director of Clinical Specialist, Clinical Education and Nursing Policy
Please join the Center for Nursing Excellence in congratulating Devin Terry, MSN, RN, CNS-BC, CPHQ for being selected as the September 2021 UAMS DAISY Nurse Leader Award recipient! This award expresses gratitude for courageous leaders fostering an environment where compassion and courage can thrive.
Devin is the Director of Clinical Education and Nursing Practice & Policy for UAMS and was nominated by two different UAMS co-workers. The comments below are taken from their nominations which speak to each characteristic of an outstanding nurse leader.
“Creates an environment where attributes of trust, compassion, mutual respect, continued professional development and ethical behavior are modeled and support.
Devin Terry sets a high bar for the Clinical Education Department and does no less for herself. She has created an environment of trust, compassion, and respect by her honesty, willingness to listen, and continued desire to help with anything that needs to be addressed. Her ability to encourage and motivate staff coupled with her obvious wealth of knowledge allows her to guide this department towards a bright future.
Devin promotes knowledge sharing through group discussion and frequently asks for input on department initiatives. She approaches new projects or tasks with a collaborative attitude rather than a simple directive. This has helped to build our relationship as a work family who is better together.
Devin continually sets a great example of professional and ethical behavior. In the challenges of the initial COVID-19 response while all of us where frustrated and tired, Devin continually encouraged and enabled us to rise to the occasion by expressing her understanding and desire to help us help others.
Devin has an open door policy and turns nobody away. When you have a conversation with Devin you know you are heard and she offers encouraging support and is a great resource for experienced and inexperienced nursing staff. When reaching out to Devin for advice on continued professional development for myself, she provided the nurturing and compassionate support any great leader possesses. Devin is a model of ethical behavior when topics come up regarding patient safety, as her role as the director of nursing policies helps achieve just that.
Motivates staff with a shared vision and enthusiasm to achieve better outcomes for themselves and for their patients and families.
Inevitably with so many moving parts and pieces no one knows all the details and you can find yourself lacking rationale for directives. Devin goes above and beyond to provide rationales and information about new tasks or directives to help the department understand its purpose. This desire for transparency and knowledge sharing invites us into the process and allows us a better understanding of our department’s role within the organization. She always encourages ideas and provides guidance to help facilitate department or individual projects which helps us to enthusiastically invest in our work.
For example I noted there where several competency books that were out of date. While as a department this was not our main focus she did not discourage my desire to take on this task. She offered guidance, encouragement, and assistance.
Recently when a safety event occurred she brought me into the process of helping to provide education for future prevention and policy clarification. With so many new opportunities within this project it has challenged me to grow and motivated me to continue to learn and be a part of the shared vision for a culture of safety.
Every other week Devin holds staff meetings with the clinical education department and focuses not only on required responsibilities, but truly values everyone’s input. Recently, she sent an email asking for everyone’s vision for how clinical education could be better laid out. She stated this topic would be discussed at the next staff meeting, but wanted her team to have adequate time to brainstorm and bring ideas to the table.
Devin encourages the clinical education department and the clinical specialists in each unit to work closely with one another to not only provide quality education for staff, but ultimately to improve the outcomes for patients and their families.
Promotes and enhances the image of nursing within the organization, the community and the profession included engagement, recognition, and retention.
Devin’s advocacy skills are nothing short of amazing. She is continually bringing Clinical Education to the attention of many groups within the organization as partners for solutions and innovation. By encouraging us to do our best and show casing our departments capabilities to others we are well on our way to evolving into the department we always knew we could be. Under her leadership she is helping us to be seen, giving us pride in what we do and what we can offer as a team. She also takes the time to discuss the effects our efforts have on patient outcomes and staff satisfaction which help drive our engagement due to our shared desire as nurses to continually improve patent and staff experiences.
Recently she has encouraged Clinical Education’s inclusion on several committees and working groups to ensure we are able to use our departments expertise to be a part of important initiatives such as patient safety.
She is always actively investigating our individual professional interest, strengths, and opportunities for growth. She seeks out and offers projects, tasks, or opportunities very deliberately taking this information into consideration. It is great to feel that my leader has confidence in me and supports me. I have expressed my desire to grow in my role repeatedly and Devin has provided me several opportunities to do so. Her confidence in my current skills and potential for more helps me feel like I am in a good place and I can continue to invest in this department.
Devin goes above and beyond as the Director of Clinical Education by creating retreats for the department to attend in order to grow as individuals and as an entire team.
She empowers us to train nurses into being role models. She helps us become role models to be able to help the new hires become preceptors and leaders on their units.
Devin is the image of nursing within UAMS. She is a leader, a friend, someone to confide in, someone to come to with ethical problems and so many other things. Devin will do anything she can to help anyone. You can tell she truly wants to make UAMS the best place she can.
Thank You, Devin Terry for demonstrating the true values of a DAISY Nurse Leader!
To learn more about The DAISY Nurse Leader Award, please visit: http//nurses.uams.edu.