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An honor walk is an emotional and personalized ceremony to acknowledge a patient who is donating his or her organs at the end of life. The rituals – a last show of respect – embrace the grief of loss and the gratitude of giving life to others. Family members, friends, and caretakers line the hospital hallway to give a final farewell to the patient as he or she makes one last trip from patient room to operating room.

Once unknown, more and more honor walks are taking place at UVA Health, and there is a movement to make the ceremonies universal and standardized.

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is an early adopter of honor walks. One of their nurses, Andrea Dunshie, RN, recently demonstrated why honor walks are important for those the patient leaves behind. A colleague nominated Andrea for a DAISY Award based on her grace under pressure when planning an honor walk for a pediatric patient and making her last moments extra special.

Andrera recently received the DAISY Award at a surprise ceremony on her unit. Read Andrea’s nomination below:

“I was caring for a patient who had suffered multiple strokes and was very sick. The first night I had her, her mother decided to redirect care toward comfort measures with an end goal of pursuing organ donation, if possible.

“By the end of my second and last night with this patient, she was increasingly hemodynamically unstable and beginning to herniate. Her sweet family was in a very delicate place and needed lots of TLC.”

“They had bonded with every single nurse that had ever taken care of them, but unfortunately, coming into the weekend, none of the nurses who had had her before were back the next day. I had to choose someone new for them who I thought would be the best fit given their tough situation, and boy, did I choose right!

“Andrea is not only highly skilled and an excellent PICU nurse, she is also very compassionate. She met all of the patient’s mother’s needs as well as the needs of many extended family members. She facilitated and participated in lots of memory-making, including helping to create beautiful hand molds of each of the patient’s grandmothers holding the patient’s hand – beautiful works of art that they will have forever.

“She was able to level with the patient’s mother and give her the answers and communication she needed in as honest and loving a way as possible. She was very well received by this family.

“Perhaps the most special thing that Andrea did though was to help coordinate this special little girl’s honor walk. We recently started doing honor walks for patients heading down to the OR for organ donation. Any available staff line the OR hallway to pay their respects and honor the patient and their gift of life.

“Due to the massive amount of coordination on LifeNet Health’s end in getting all the recipient surgeons to UVA, the patient’s OR time was quite late – later than initially expected. Lots of family, friends, and coworkers of the mom had come from near and far to be a part of the honor walk, something they had even come to look forward to since the decision for her to be a donor. However, with the late OR time, most of them would have to leave and wouldn’t be able to participate.

“That was when Andrea decided to organize a special honor walk. She picked a time when staff from both the day shift and the oncoming night shift could attend, and she herself stayed late to help facilitate it.

“It was a major undertaking to take such a critical patient on an elective walk around the 7th floor safely and not something that we’ve ever done before. It was very beautiful. All available staff from UVA Children’s lined the halls of the 7th floor, held balloons and flags, and even dressed in beachy, tropical colors to honor the patient, who was given the hashtag #mermaidsoul.

“The patient had her honor walk with special music playing in the background. It was very moving for everyone, but especially for the patient’s family. They went on to write and say very beautiful things about the staff in the PICU. For Andrea though, I was very impressed with how gracefully she was able to walk into one of the worst imaginable situations and make it the best that she could for the people around her, especially having no previous relationship with the family as other nurses had.”

Nomination edited for clarity.

Know a fabulous nurse?
The Professional Nursing Staff Organization honors up to two UVA RNs each month with a DAISY Award. Nominations may be submitted by patients, patient families, visitors, and fellow UVA team members. Learn more at uvadaisy.com.