From one RN to another - how to thank a hospice nurse?

[emergency_love]

Hey guys, I'm just visiting your sub today to ask how to thank you. I'm an emergency nurse and have always been so far. All my deaths have been fast and furious, and all the people who've held on get shipped to the ICU!

Recently my mother was taken in a three-week blur at the age of 60 from aggressive colorectal cancer. I spent five long days in an inpatient Hospice after we were given the terminal news. I watched my mother beg for her life and finally let go in those five days in a beautiful hospice center we were fortuante to live near. I was wondering... How can I give my thanks? The nurses and nurse assistants picked me up when I was a pool of tears. One nurse in particular was so genuine that in my mother's last days of suffering, she kept me at ease and my mother woke up in her last lucid moment and greeted this nurse and hugged her like an old friend, it made me ask if they had known each other (my mother was a nurse also). They did not, but we all knew this particular nurse was an old soul who was born for this job.

How I give thanks? It's been about two weeks now, and I want to recognize the entire staff, especially that one particular nurse. I've been thinking of the age-old practice of dropping off a dessert, but it doesn't feel like.. Enough. I have already wrote a note of recognition to the nurse in their "drop box" of "stars of the hospice". Blah. We have the same thing in my unit and it is pretty impersonal (but I work in a crappy management situation).

Thank you all for everything you do. I really don't think I could have the bravery and selflessness of a hospice nurse (or assistant). Any ideas on how to thank you?

[softrbreeze]

I can't speak for that particular nurse but I treasure the little "love notes" I've received over the years and hold on to them in an effort to remember those special patients and their families. I think that a note is completely appropriate.

[nutella, MSN, RN]

Writing a letter to the CEO or director of the hospice team and express why you are thankful and so on. I always find that letters like that carry you through the times when nobody appreciates what you are doing....

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

I agree with Nutella, find out everyone's name that you want to thank and then write a letter to the CEO mentioning them all by name. That does it for me more than a plate of brownies.