National Nurses Week- Taylor Lewis

In honor of National Nurses Week, we chose to highlight several Riverside nurses who embody our mission. Not only is their work inspiring, but it demonstrates that what we do is more than a job—it’s a calling.

As a young girl, Taylor Lewis watched her mother attend hospital visit after hospital visit for cancer treatments. Her mother spoke so highly of her nurses and the care she received that Taylor never forgot. When she was much older, her grandfather, who recently passed away, also spoke about how compassionate his nurses were. She said it always made her feel good to know her family was in good hands with nurses. Now, she gets to be that person for many other families.

Today, Taylor is a registered nurse in the emergency room at Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital. After taking college courses in high school, she was able to enter college as a sophomore at Longwood University and began the nursing program in her first year. In her second year, she began clinicals, which gave her hands-on learning experience in the field. Then in her junior year, she applied for and was accepted to be a nurse extern in the emergency room at Riverside.

“I would encourage anyone in nursing to do an externship,” Taylor said. “I learned so much and it really let me see what I was getting into. I got to see how the department ran and got to know the staff.”

After graduating in May 2019, she took the nursing board exam that summer and started at Riverside just two days later. In her first year as a full-time nurse, COVID struck. For Taylor, one of the biggest challenges was not knowing how the virus would affect each patient differently. While a lot of diseases follow a similar path, COVID did not. There was no model to follow. And at any point, a patient could take a turn for the worse. To account for that, she now watches patients more carefully, monitors their vital signs more closely, and checks in more regularly on their behavior. Despite the challenges, Taylor said this has helped her develop better critical care skills, including what to do when things change rapidly, and recognizing certain signs and symptoms.

“To my fellow nurses: Keep up the great work,” she said. “You’re appreciated more than you’ll ever know.”

As nurses driven by compassionate care, they had to adapt in many ways. Being there for both patients and their families became increasingly more challenging as they adjusted to wearing PPE while interacting with patients, and using technology creatively in lieu of in-person visits. She said it has been a learning opportunity for them all, especially in caring for patients in ways they wouldn't under normal conditions.

“I’m appreciative of the nurses who taught me along my way,” she said. “I want to continue to give back and teach new nurses to care for patients with the Riverside mission: to care for others as we would care for those we love.”